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JOAN OF ARC 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 



FROM MITCHELET'S HISTORY OF FRANCE. 



WITH INTRODUCTORY SKETCH AND NOTES 

By henry KETCHAM. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS. 



NEW tork: 
A. L. BURT, PUBLISHER. 



32669 



Library of Cone .^.;< 

Twu Copies Receive o 
AUG 9 1900 

Copyright entry 

SECOND COPY. 

Delivered to 

ORDER DIVISION, 

AUG 10 190 

O 4 -± i O 
Copyright, 1900, by A. L. BuRT. 



JOAN OF ARC, WITH INTRODUCTORY SKETCH 
AND NOTES. 

By Henry Ketcham. 



2^ f 







PKEFACE. 



Our prosy American homes need to be 
illuminated by the presence of heroines and 
of heroes. Long enough have the shadows 
of the bloodless personages of mere fiction 
rested upon the hearthstone. Life and his- 
tory are always stranger than the day-dreams 
of fancy ; they can satisfy the cravings of 
imagination, while they feed the heart and 
instruct the mind. We hunger for the real, 
and our souls grow strong when nourished 
with " deeds sublime." 

The life of Joan of Arc, the Maid of Or- 
leans, is the most brilliant chapter in Mi- 
chelet's brilliant History of France. You 



ni 



iv PREFACE. 

have it here, reader, in large, clear type, and 
can easily peruse it, while sitting at home 
or riding along the dusty highway. If the 
true story of that child of France does not 
'idke your heart strangely beat, then go 
your way, — hoe your corn or wash your 
dishes, count your cash or return Mrs. Grun- 
dy's call, cut a coat or sew a shirt, write a 
brief or give the finishing touch of educa- 
tional death to a beautiful young soul, — 
there is no latent heroism, no latent ro- 
mance, in you ; it is impossible to awaken 
in you — not what sleeps, but what exists 
not, for it is not given to mortal to create 
something out of nothing. 

Accept, then, all you that are worthy, — 
and we take comfort in believing that you 
are the majority, — this picture of feminine 
heroism. The life of Joan of Arc reveals 
to us the heart of France, and prophesies 
to us, more clearly than the philosophic 



PREFACE. V 

words of any statesman, the future of that 
great people. America, too, in due time, 
shall have her Maid of Orleans, to repre- 
sent the noblest, purest womanhood tha"^ 
history has yet developed. The cry of pi'u- 
test, raised here and there with more or less 
wisdom, or folly, points to a future that is 
not without hope. 

Everybody in this country has heard of 
M. Michelet, but very feAV know anything 
about him. A brief sketch of his life, we 
think, will be interesting to many. 

Jules Michelet was born at Paris, August 
21, 1798. In 1821, he entered upon a 
career of instruction, under the happiest 
auspices. From that period to the year 
1826, he was successively employed at the 
College Kollin as teacher of history, of 
ancient languages, and of philosophy. In 
1827 he was appointed Mditre des Confe- 
rences at the Ecole Normale. Shortly after 



Vi PREFACE. 

the revolution of July he was placed at the 
head of the historical department of the 
National Archives. In 1838 he succeeded 
Daunau in the chair of history and moral 
philosophy in the College de France. He 
was elected the same year a Member of the 
Institute, in the class of Moral Sciences. 

The following are M. Michelet's principal 
works :— " Chronological Tableau of Modern 
History" (1825), " Synchronical T^^Ze^^^ of 
Modern History" (1826), and a "Summary 
of Modern History," " Introduction to Uni- 
versal History" (1831), "Eoman History " 
(same year), " Summary of the History of 
France before the Ke volution" (1833), 
" (Euvres Choisies " from Vico, and " Me- 
moires of Luther," written by himseK 
(1835), "Origin of French law {droit) 
sought in the symbols and formulas of uni- 
versal law" (1837), "Jesuites" (1843), 
" The Priest, Woman, and the Family " 



PREFACE. Vii 

(1844), "The People" (1846), the first vol- 
ume of his "History of the Revolution" 
(1847). M. Michelet's great work is his 
'■'• History of France^ A recent produc- 
tion, entitled " H Oiseau^'' is full of poetry 
and melancholy, and perhaps reveals the 
heart of a man who has toiled and suffered 
much. 

Gladly would we trace the celebrated his- 
torian through the struggles of his youth 
and the labors of his manhood ; gladly 
would we endeavor to portray him as he 
has lived and worked in the midst of his 
cotemporaries, but limits are imposed upon 
us here, and we must content ourselves with 
the merest outlines. He was too liberal for 
even the government of Louis Philippe, 
which deprived him of his professor's chair. 
After the revolution of February, he re- 
turned to his chair, but the government 
silenced him again, in 1850. He lost his 



Viii PREFACE. 

place in the Archives when, after the Cowp 
d'Etat of December, 1851, he refused to 
take the oath of allegiance to the perjured 
usurper of the throne of France. His 
country, on whose fair bosom rests for a 
period a frightful military incubus, must 
be deprived of the services of her noblest 
sons. Vain, however, are the despot's pros- 
cription. Others, as well as M. Guizot, 
can repeat the significant language of M. de 
Chateaubriand : " When, in the silence of 
abject submission, we hear only the chains 
of the slave and the voice of the informer ; 
when all tremble before the tyrant, and it is 
as dangerous to incur favor as to merit dis- 
grace, the historian appears to be charged 
with the vengeance of nations. It is in vain 
that Nero triumphs. Tacitus has been 
born in the Empire ; he grows up near the 
ashes of Germanicus, and already uncom- 
promising Providence has handed over to 



PREFACE. ix 

an obscure child the glory of the master of 
the world." 

This Life of Joan of Arc is a fair speci- 
men of M. Michelet's fervid, poetical style. 
May the history of the real deeds of an in^ 
spired heroine bring some hours of elevated 
pleasure to many a home. 

O. W. Wight. 



INTRODUCTOKY SKETCH. 



/The accompanying story of the life of 
Joan of Arc is a portrait, beautifully drawn 
and delicately colored. To understand it 
fully, however, — indeed, to understand it 
at all, — requires a certain knowledge of 
the history of those times, especially of the 
condition of affairs in France. To supply 
this in some slight measure is the purpose 
of this introductory sketch. 

The cause of many of the troubles which 
fell upon both England and France may, 
with tolerable accuracy, be put into a sin- 
gle sentence : namely. For many centuries 

1 



2 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

England thought that her prosperity depend- 
ed upon holding at least one fortified city 
in France, while France similarly thought 
it necessary to her welfare to hold at least 
one city in England. This idea, firmly held 
by both parties, cost six centuries of time, 
inestimable treasures, and the sacrifice of 
innumerable human lives. It is now ap- 
parent to all that the English Channel is 
there by divine appointment, and that both 
England and France prosper best by keep- 
ing on their own sides of the dividing line. 
The relations of England to France in the 
fifteenth century were emphatically try- 
ing. 

The first noticeable feature of the times 
of Joan of Arc is the low state of morality 
in general. It was an age of oppression, 
debauchery, and all the attendant vices and 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 3 

crimes. Judicial murder was common, 
and murder that was not judicial was com- 
mon. Assassination was not unusual, and 
the crime was condoned if convenience 
required condonement. These butcheries 
were practised by and upon the highest 
nobility of the realm. The withering in- 
dictment of Mark Twain contains not one 
word too much : — 

\ " Her century was the brutalest, the wick- 
edest, the rottenest in history since the dark 
ages. . . Lying was the common speech 
of men . . . honesty was become a lost 
virtue . . . the keeping of a promise was 
expected of no one . . . great minds 
wasted themselves upon pretty fancies or 
upon poor ambitions ... a merciless 
cruelty was the rule ... [it was] an age 
which had forgotten what honor was . . . 



4 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

men believed in nothing and scoffed at all 
things ... [it was] an age that was false 
to the core . . . hope and courage had 
perished in the hearts of her nation . . . 
[she found] a great nation lying in chains, 
helpless and hopeless under an alien dom- 
ination, its treasury bankrupt, its soldiers 
disheartened and dispersed, all spirit tor- 
pid, all courage dead in the hearts of the 
people through long years of foreign and 
domestic outrage and oppression, their 
king cowed, resigned to his fate,. and pre- 
paring to fly the country." 

Paris has always been the heart and the 
brain of France. It is so to-day, it was so 
at the time of Joan of Arc. At that period 
Paris came into the control of the butchers, 
Cabochiens, who were a sort of guild or 
corporation, and, having secured the dom- 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 5 

ination of the city, became in a way a po- 
litical party. Their foes were the Arma- 
gnacs. Much violence was done to harm- 
less rich folks ; " it was only needful to call 
such an one an Armagnac, then all fell on 
him, killed him, and took his goods." As 
for the poor, they had apparently neither 
rights nor consideration. Kitchin declares 
that at Paris the Dauphin reigned supreme 
and gave himself up to his debaucheries. 
This being the state of affairs in Paris, one 
is left to imagine the general situation of 
the country. Two opecial facts should also 
be kept in mind : one was that the church 
was rent with the bitterest schism and there 
were two popes ; the other was that it was 
in the midst of what is known as The 
Hundred Years' War. 

The jealousies, rivalries, and strifes grad- 



Q INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

ually arranged themselves, with more or 
less definiteness, into the two chief fac- 
tions, known as Burgundians and Arma- 
gnacs. Both parties sought the alliance 
of the English, while the English in 
turn naturally wished to be allied to the 
stronger party. At the time of Joan of Arc 
the Burgundians were allied to the English, 
while the Dauphin was with the Armagnacs. 
We may then roughly divide them into pa- 
triots and tories : the Armagnacs being the 
patriots and the Burgundians being the to- 
ries. At this period the Burgundians had 
decidedly the advantage, — in numbers, 
wealth, position, and alliance. The real 
France, as distinguished from the English 
domination, was in desperate straits, and to 
them came Joan of Arc as a last hope. But 
it should be added that there was a general 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 7 

awakening of patriotism, which, however, 
would have come to nothing had it not been 
for her marvelous leadership. It is always 
true in history that the raising up of a 
leader implies the raising up of people for 
that leader to lead. It is true in this case ; 
but rarely or never has the leader been re- 
quired to do so much in the way of putting 
heart — and sense ! — into the people to be 
led. 

The next factor in this complicated situ- 
ation was the insanity of the king, Charles 
VI. Like the other men of noble station 
he was profligate in the extreme. It is not 
improbable that his madness was the direct 
result of his vices. At all events he went 
mad in 1392, or twenty years before Joan 
was born, and he died a maniac in 1422, 
when she was ten years old. He was put 



8 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

in charge of his brother, the Diike of Or- 
leans, who served as regent. Orleans was 
soon assassinated by order of Burgundy, and 
Burgundy was later assassinated in revenge. 
The mad king was tossed helpless from one 
party to another. 

Charles VI. had lucid intervals, usually 
lasting several months in the spring of the 
year. This kept the nervous tension of the 
people under a severe strain, for they never 
abandoned the hope of his recovery, and this 
hope deferred made their hearts sick. His 
good intentions, formed during the lucid 
intervals, could not be carried out. 

The Dauphin was in a situation not much 
less difficult. His mother, married at four- 
teen, was the beautiful Isabelle of Bavaria. 
In that age of shameless profligacy no one 
surpassed her. She made little or no con- 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 9 

cealment of her vices. Tlie DaupMn saw 
her dissolute life, and it is not surprising 
that he had serious doubts as to his own 
legitimacy. These doubts were removed 
only by the earnest assurances of Joan of 
Arc. 

After the death of Charles VI. the Dau- 
phin was ipvom.ipt[y proclaimed king, but he 
was not crowned. For a period of seven 
years he hesitated and dallied. One reason 
of this hesitancy was certainly the doubt of 
his own legitimacy, above mentioned. It 
is probable that his inherent lack of force 
and courage also contributed to the result. 
But, whatever the cause or causes, it is 
plain that this long-continued delay and 
indecision worked disastrously upon his 
career. He was sometimes called the Dau- 
phin, sometimes Charles VII. What was 



10 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

most needed in order to unite his own fol- 
lowers and recruit them from the ranks of 
the indifferent, was to insist upon his rights 
and have the ceremony of coronation per- 
formed at once with due pomp and solem- 
nity. Joan of Arc saw that this was the 
specific need of the crisis. Though others 
called him Charles VII. she refused to call 
him anything but Dauphin, until he should 
be duly crowned. This is the significance 
of her reassurance of his legitimacy, and of 
her conducting him to Rheims for corona- 
tion. When this was achieved she con- 
sidered her work done. 

It is not possible in a brief sketch to go 
into the details of the tangled web of French- 
English complication, but one more fact 
must be mentioned. The mad king, Charles 
VI., had, in 1420, given his daughter Cath- 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. H 

erine in marriage to Henry V. with tlie 
agreement that Henry's heirs should for- 
ever after rule France. But two years 
later both Charles VI. and Henry V. died, 
the prince, afterwards Henry VI., being at 
that time only a few months old. This 
threw France into an English regency 
which could not be other than galling to 
every real Frenchman. It was impossible 
to avoid the question whether the agree- 
ment between the dead kings could bind 
the French nation in view of the fact that 
the Dauphin, the rightful heir to the 
French throne, was nineteen years old. 
The Burgundians had joined the English for 
purposes of their own, and surely the pros- 
perity of France was not one of these pur- 
poses. The Armagnacs may not have been 
more intelligent or more moral than their 



12 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

opponents ; but, in their urgency to further 
the rights of the Dauphin, they did cer- 
tainly represent the patriotism of France. 
Certainly, also, Joan's devotion to the 
Dauphin was, in concrete form, are presenta- 
tion of her devotion to France. 

The moral character of the Dauphin — 
Charles YII. — is a factor in the develop- 
ment of these events. It is not needful to 
say much of him, but it must be kept in 
mind that Joan served him as the only 
means of serving France. Born of a mad 
father and a dissolute mother, reared in the 
midst of the very refinement of luxurious 
vice, he became what might naturally be 
expected. It is here sufficient to point out 
his colossal ingratitude to Joan. After she 
had effectually broken the power of the 
English — dealt them a blow " from which 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 13 

they should not recover in a thousand 
years" — and placed him firmly on the 
throne, he refused her earnest request that 
she might be permitted to return home, he 
allowed her to be sold to the English, by 
whom she was turned over to the Inquisi- 
tion, by whom she was tortured and " tried " 
at the same time, and ultimately she was 
burned alive. In all this, Charles mani- 
fested no interest in his marvelous cham- 
pion and saviour. He afterwards became 
insane — the result of heredity plus his own 
vices — and so died. 

Such, in barest outline, were the times of 
Joan of Arc. "The sixteenth century," 
says Guizot, "with its St. Bartliolomew 
and The League.^ the eighteenth with its 
Jtieign of Terror^ and the nineteenth with its 
Commune of Paris contain scarcely any 



14 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

events so sinister as tliose of which France 
was, in the reign of Charles VI., from 1380 
to 1422, the theater and the victim.'^ Into 
these times was born this pure, true, high- 
spirited girl. It is impossible to account 
for her on any theory of heredity or of 
evolution. She was not the product of the 
times ; she was the gift of God. Tracing 
the spotless lily to its root, one finds it 
growing from mud and slime. But the 
foulness of the soil did not produce the 
beauty of the lily, though its home is there. 
This contrast is not greater than that of 
this beautiful girl to the foulness of her 
environment. 

She touched others with the spark of 
her enthusiasm and they felt a thrill of the 
divine life. To the Dauphin, Charles VII., 
she communicated the only energy of manli- 



INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 15 

ness lie ever showed. She changed armies 
from dninken, debauched, plundering mobs 
to well-disciplined and efficient soldiers. 
She taught the fearless but profane and 
coarse La Hire to pray and not swear. 
She deepened the piety of sincere digni- 
taries of the church, and mercilessly un- 
masked the hypocrisy of the Judases and 
Caiaphases. She may be said to have raised 
France from the dead, for it was her en- 
thusiasm, her teaching, her example that 
taught patriotism to a people who had 
hopelessly — but for her — lost the word and 
its meaning. 

The story of the tragedy of Rouen is 
told with sufficient fulness in the accom- 
panying narrative of Michelet. In all the 
painful narratives of suifering innocence, 
few are more painful than this. But her 



16 INTRODUCTORY SKETCH. 

soul was marcliing on. Her life left the 
air of France sweeter and the sky clearer. 
Her influence was not consumed in that fire 
which turned her body into ashes. For 
four centuries and a half she has been an 
object of admiration, not to say adoration, 
not to the French people alone, but to the 
entire civilized world. 

HENRY KETCHAM. 



JOAN OF ARC. 



The originality of the Pucelle,^ the secret 
of her success, was not her courage or her 
visions, but her good sense. Amidst all her 
enthusiasm, the girl of the people clearly 
saw the question, and knew how to re- 
solve it. The knot which politician and 
doubter could not unloose, she cut. She 
pronounced, in God's name, the Dauphin, 
afterwards Charles VII., to be the heir : 
she reassured him as to his legitimacy, 
which he had doubts himself; and she 

^ This was Joan's surname. The word means 
Maid, see page 139. In Shakspeare's Henry VI. she 
is frequently called the Pucelle 

2 17 



18 JOAN OF ARC, 

sanctified this legitimacy by taking liim 
straiglit to Reims, and, by her quickness, 
gaining over the English the decisive ad- 
vantage of the coronation. 

It wsis by no means rare to see women 
take up arms. They often fought in sieges : 
v^itness the eighty women wounded at 
Amiens : witness Jeanne Hachette. In the 
Pucelle's day, and in the self-same years as 
she, the Bohemian women fought like men 
in the wars of the Hussites.-^ 

No more, I repeat, did the originality of 
the Pucelle consist in her visions. Who 
but had visions in the middle age ? Even 
in this prosaic fifteenth century, excess of 
suffering had singularly exalted men's im- 
aginations. We find at Paris, one brother 

^ John Hus, of Bohemia, one of the reformers be- 
fore the Eeformation, was burned alive in 1415, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 19 

Richard, so exciting the populace by his 
sermons that at last the English banished 
him the city. Assemblies of from fifteen 
to twenty thousand souls were collected 
by the preaching of the Breton Carmelite 
friar, Conecta, at Courtrai and at Arras. 
In the space of a few years, before and 
after the Pucelle, every province had its 
saint — either a Pierrette, a Breton peasant 
girl who holds converse with Jesus Christ, 
or a Marie of Avignon, a Catherine of Ro- 
chelle ; or a poor shepherd, such as Sain- 
trailles brings up from his own counti 3^ who 
has the stigmata ^ on his feet and hands, 
and who sweats blood on holy days, like the 
present holy woman of the Tyrol. 

^ Bleeding wounds in hands, feet, and side, like 
those of our Lord. These are said to have appeared 
miraculously on certain devout saints in the Middle 
Ages. 



20 JOAN OF ARC, 

Lorraine, apparently, was one of the last 
provinces to expect such a phenomenon 
from. The Lorrainers are brave, and apt 
to blows, but most delight in stratagem and 
craft. If the great Guise saved France, be- 
fore disturbing her, it was not by visions. 
Two Lorrainers make themselves conspicu- 
ous at the siege of Orleans, and both dis- 
play the natural humor of their witty 
countryman, Callot ; one of these is the 
cannonier, master Jean, who used to counter- 
feit death so well : the other is a knight 
who, being taken by the English and loaded 
with chains, when they withdrew, returned 
riding on the back of an English monk„ 

The character of the Lorraine of the 
Vosges, it is true, is of graver kind. This 
lofty district, from whose mountain sides 
rivers run seaward through France in every 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 21 

direction, was covered witli forests of such 
vast size as to be esteemed by tlie Carlo- 
vingians the most worthy of their imperial 
hunting parties. In glades of these forests 
rose the venerable abbeys of Luxeuil and 
Remiremont ; the latter, as is well known, 
under the rule of an abbess who was ever 
a princess of the holy Empire, who had her 
great officers, in fine, a whole feudal court, 
and used to be preceded by her seneschal, 
bearing the naked sword. The dukes of 
Lorraine had been vassals, and for a long 
period, of this female sovereignty. 
I. It was precisely between the Lorraine of 
the Yosges and that of the plains, between 
Lorraine and Champagne, at Dom-Remy, 
that the brave and beautiful girl, destined 
to bear so well the sword of France, first 
saw the light. 



22 JOAN OF ARC, 

Along tlie Meuse, and within a circuit of 
ten leagues, there are four Dom-Remys ; 
three in the diocese of Toul, one in that of 
Langres. It is probable that these four 
villages were, in ancient times, dependen- 
cies of the abbey of Saint-Reniy, at Reims. 
In the Carlo vingian ^ period, our great ab- 
beys are known to have held much more 
distant possessions ; as far, indeed, as in 
Provence, in Grermany, and even in England. 

This line of the Meuse is the border of 
Lorraine and of Champagne, so long an ob- 
ject of contention betwixt monarch and 
duke. Jeanne's father, Jacques Dare was 
a worthy Champenois.^ Jeanne, no doubt, 
inherited her disposition from this parent ; 
she had none of the Lorraine ruggedness, 

^ The period beginning with Charlemagne, who 
was crowned in the year 800. 
^ Native of Champagne. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 23 

but much rather the Champenois mildness ; 
that simplicity, blended with sense and 
shrewdness, which is observable in Join- 
ville. 

A few centuries earlier, Jeanne would 
have been bom the serf of the abbey of 
Saint-Remy ; a century earlier, the serf of 
the sire de Joinville, who was lord of Vau- 
couleurs, on which city the village of Dom- 
Remy depended. But, in 1335, the king 
obliged the Joinvilles to cede Vaucouleurs 
to him. It formed at that time the grand 
channel of communication between Cham- 
pagne and Lorraine, and was the high road 
to Germany, as well as that of the bank of 
the Meuse — the cross or intersecting point 
of the two routes. It was, too, we may 
say, the frontier between the two great 
parties : near Dom-Remy was one of the 



24 JOAN OF ARC, 

last villages that held to the Burgundians ; 
all the rest was for Charles VII. 

In all ages this border of Lorraine and 
of Champagne had suffered cruelly from 
war ; first, a long war between the east 
and the west, between the king and the 
duke, for the possession of Neufchateau 
and the adjoining places ; then war between 
the north and south, between the Burgun- 
dians and the Armagnacs. The remem- 
brance of these pitiless wars has never been 
effaced. Not long since was seen, near 
Neuf chateau, an antique tree with sinister 
name, whose branches had no doubt often 
borne human fruit — Chene des Partisans 
(the Partisans' Oak). 

The poor people of the border had the 
honor of being directly subject to the king ; 
that is, in reality they belonged to no one, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 25 

were neither supported nor managed by 
any one, and had no lord or protector but 
Grod. People so situated are of a serious 
cast. They know that they can count 
upon nothing ; neither on their goods nor 
on their lives. They sow, the soldier reaps. 
Nowhere does the husbandman feel greater 
anxiety about the affairs of his country, 
none have a directer interest in them ; the 
least reverse shakes him so roughly ! He 
inquires, he strives to know and to fore- 
see ; above all, he is resigned ; whatever hap- 
pens, he is prepared for it ; he is patient 
and brave. Women even become so ; they 
must become so, among all these soldiers, 
if not for the sake of life, for that of honor, 
like Goethe's beautiful and hardy Dorothea.^ 

^ Heroine of the poem entitled ' ' Hermann and 
Dorothea." . i -. . . 



26 JOAN OF ARC, 

Jeanne was the third daughter of a 
laborer,^ Jacques Dcurc^ and of Isabella 
Homee. ^ Her two godmothers were called, 
the one, Jeanne^ the other, Sihylle. 

Their eldest son had been named Jacques^ 
and another, Pierre. The pious parents 
gave one of their daughters the loftier 
name of '^d^mt-Jean.^ 

While the other children were taken by 

^ There may be seen at this day, above the door 
of the hut where Jeanne Dare lived, three scutch- 
eons carved on stone — that of Louis XI., who 
beautified the hut ; that which was undoubtedly 
given to one of her brothers, along with the sur- 
name of Du Lis ; and a third, charged with a star 
and three plowhshares, to image the mission of 
the Pucelle and the humble condition of her par- 
ents. Vallet, Memoire adresse a I'lnstitut Histd- 
rique, sur le nom de famille de la Pucelle. 

^ The name of Romee was often assumed in the 
middle age by those who had made the pilgrim- 
age to Rome. 

^ This Christian name is that of a great number 
of celebrated men of the middle age. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 27 

their father to work in the fields, or set to 
watch cattle, the mother kept Jeanne at 
home, sewing or spinning. She was taught 
neither reading nor writing ; but she learned 
all- her mother knew of sacred things. She 
imbibed her religion, not as a lesson or a 
ceremony, but in the popular and simple 
form of an evening fireside story, as a truth 
of a mother's telling. . . . What we imbibe 
thus with our blood and milk, is a living 
thing, is life itself. . . . 

As regards Jeanne's piety, we have the 
affecting testimony of the friend of her 
infancy, of her bosom friend, Haumette, 
who was younger than she by three or four 
years. " Over and over again," she said, 
" I have been at her father's, and have 
slept with her, in all love {de honne amitie). 
. . . She was a very good girl, simple and 



\ 28 JOAN OF ARC, 

gentle. She was fond of going to cliurcli, 
and to holy places. She spun, and attended 
to the house, like other girls. . . . She con- 
fessed frequently. She blushed when told 
that she was too devout, and went too often 
to church." A laborer, also summoned to 
give evidence, adds, that she nursed the 
sick, and was charitable to the poor. " I 
know it well," were his words ; " I was 
then a child, and it was she who nursed 
me." 

Her charity, her piety, were known to all. 
All saw that she was the best girl in the 
village. What they did not see and know 
was that in her, celestial aspirations ever 
absorbed worldly feelings, and suppressed 
their development. She had the divine 
gift to remain, soul and body, a child. She 
grew up strong and beautiful ; but never 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 29 

knew the physical sufferings entailed on 
woman. They were spared her, that she 
might be the more devoted to religious 
thought and inspiration. Born under the 
very walls of the church, lulled in hei cradle 
by the chimes of the bells, and nourished by 
legends, she was herself a legend, a quickly 
passing and pure legend from birth to death. 

She was a living legend . . . but her vital 
spirits, exalted and concentrated, did not 
become the less creative. The young girl 
created, so to speak unconsciously and 
realized her own ideas, endowing them with 
being, and imparting to them, out of the 
strength of her original vitality, such splen- 
did and all-powerful existence, that they 
threw into the shade the wretched realities 
of this world. 

If poetry mean creation^ this undoubt- 



30 JOAN OF ARC, 

edly, is the highest poetry. Let us trace 
the steps by which she soared thus high 
from so lowly a starting-point. 

Lowly, in truth, but already poetic. Her 
village was close to the vast forests of the 
Vosges. From the door of her father's 
house she could see the old oak wood, the 
wood haunted by fairies; whose favorite 
spot was a fountain near a lai'ge beech, 
called the fairies,' or the ludies^ tree. On 
this the children used to hang garlands, 
and would sing around it. These antique 
ladies and mistresses of the woods were, it 
was said, no longer permitted to assemble 
round the fountain, barred by their sins. 
However, the Church was always mistrust- 
ful of the old local divinities ; and to in- 
sure their complete expulsion, the curt 
annually said a mass at the fountain. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 31 

Amidst tliese legends and popular dreams, 
Jeanne was born. But, along with tliese, 
tlie land presented a poetry of a far differ- 
ent character, savage, fierce, and, alas ! 
but too real, — ^the poetry of war. War ! 
all passions and emotions are included in 
this single word. It is not that ev^ery 
day brings with it assault and plunder, 
but it brings the fear of them — the tocsin, 
the awaking with a start, and, in the dis- 
tant horizon, the lurid light of conflagration, 
... a fearful but poetic state of things. 
The most prosaic of men, the lowland 
Scots, amidst the hazards of the border, 
have become poets : in this sinister desert, 
which even yet looks as if it were a region 
accursed, ballads, wild but long-lived flow- 
ers, have germed and flourished. 

Jeanne had her share in these romantic 



32 JOAN OF AKC, 

adventures. She would see poor fugitives 
seek refuge in her village, would assist in 
sheltering them, give them up her bed, and 
sleep herself in the loft. Once, too, her 
parents had been obliged to turn fugitives ; 
and then, when the flood of brigands had 
swept by, the family returned and found 
the village sacked, the house devastated, 
the church burnt. 

Thus she knew what war was. Thor- 
oughly did she understand this anti-Chris- 
tian state, and unfeigned was her horror 
of this reign of the devil, in which every 
man died in mortal sin. She asked herself 
whether God would always allow this, 
whether he would not prescribe a term to 
such miseries, whether he would not send a 
liberator as he had so often done for Israel — 
a Gideon, a Judith? . . . She knew that 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 33 

woman liad more than once saved God's own 
people, and that from the beginning it had 
been foretold that woman should bruise 
the serpent. No doubt she had seen over 
the portal of the churches St. Margaret, to- 
gether with St. Michael, trampling under 
foot the dragon. ... If, as all the world 
said, the ruin of the kingdom was a'woman's 
v7ork an unnatural mother's, its redemp- 
tion might well be a virgin's : and this, 
moreover, had been foretold in a prophecy 
of Merlin's ; a prophecy which, embellished 
and modified by the habits of each province, 
had become altogether Lorraine in Jeanne 
Dare's country. According to the prophecy 
current here, it was a Pucelle of the borders 
of Lorraine who was to save the realm ; and 
the prophecy had probably assumed this 
form through the recent marriage of Rene 



34 JOAN OF ARC, 

of Anjou with tlie heiress of the duchy of 
Lorraine, a marriage which, in truth, turned, 
out very happily for the kingdom of 
France. 

One summer's day, a fast-day, Jeanne, 
being at noontide in her father's garden, 
close to the church, saw a dazzling light on 
that side, and heard a voice say, " Jeanne, 
be a good and obedient child, go often to 
church." The poor girl was exceedingly 
alarmed. 

Another time she again heard the voice 

and saw the radiance ; and, in the midst of 

the eifulgence, she beheld noble figures, one 

of which had wings, and seemed a wise 

prud'Tiomme} "Jeanne," said this figure 

to her, " go to the succor of the king of 

' Specifically, member of a tribunal of inspiration. 
Generally, a person eminent in intelligence or 
wisdom. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 35 

France, and thou slialt restore his kingdom 
to him." She replied, all trembling, 
" Messire, I am only a poor girl ; I know 
not how to ride or lead men-at-arms." The 
voice replied, " Go to M. de Baudricourt, 
captain of Vaucouleurs, and he will con- 
duct thee to the king. St. Catherine and 
St. Marguerite will be thy aids." She re- 
mained stupefied and in tears, as if her 
whole destiny had been revealed to her. 

The prud'hmnme was no less than St. 
Michael, the severe archangel of judgments 
and of battles. He reappeared to her, in- 
spired her with courage, and told her " the 
pity for the kingdom of France." Then 
appeared sainted women, all in white, with 
countless lights around, rich crowns on theii' 
heads, and their voices soft and moving 
unto tears : but Jeanne shed them much 



36 JOAN OF ARC, 

more copiously when saints and angels left 
her. " I longed," she said, " for the angels 
to take me away too." 

If, in the midst of happiness like this, 
she wept, her tears were not causeless. 
Bright and glorious as these visions were, 
a change had from that moment come over 
her life. She who had hitherto heard but 
one voice, that of her mother, of which her 
own was the echo, now heard the powerful 
voice of angels — and what sought the 
heavenly voice ! That she should quit that 
mother, quit her dear home. She, whom 
but a word put out of countenance, was 
required to mix with men, to address 
soldiers. She was obliged to quit, for the 
world and for war, her little garden under 
the shadow of the church, where she heard 
no ruder sounds than those of its bells, and 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 37 

where tlie birds ate out of her hand ; for 
such was the attractive sweetness of the 
young saint, that animals and the fowls of 
the air came to her, as formerly to the 
fathers of the desert, in all the trust of 
God's peace. 

Jeanne has told us nothing of this first 
struggle that she had to undergo ; but it is 
clear that it did take place, and that it was 
of long duration, since five years elapsed 
between her first vision and her final 
abandonment of her home. 

The two authorities, the paternal and the 
celestial, enjoined her two opposite com- 
mands. The one ordered her to remain ob- 
scure, modest, and laboring ; the other to set 
out and save the kingdom. The angel bade 
her arm herself. Her father, rough and 
honest peasant as he was, swore that rather 



38 JOAN OF ARC, 

than his daughter should go away with 
men-at-arms, he would drown her with his 
own hands. One or other, disobey she 
must. Beyond a doubt this was the great- 
est battle she was called upon to fight ; those 
against the English were play in comparison. 
In her family, she encountered not only 
resistance but temptation ; for they at- 
tempted to marry her, in the hope of win- 
ning her back to more rational notions, as 
they considered. A young villager pre- 
tended that in her childhood she had prom- 
ised to marry him ; and on her denying 
this, he cited her before the ecclesiastical 
Judge of Toul. It was imagined that rather 
than undertake the effort of speaking in 
her own defense, she Avould submit to mar- 
riage. To the great astonishment of all 
who knew her, she went to Toul, appeared 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 39 

in court, and spoke — she who had been 
noted for her modest silence. 

In order to escape from the authority of 
her family, it behooved her to find in the 
bosom of that family some one who would 
believe in her : this was the most difficult 
part of all. In default of her father, she 
made her uncle a convertite to the truth of 
her mission. He took her home with him, 
as if to attend her aunt who was lying-in. 
She persuaded him to appeal on her behalf 
to the sire de Baudricourt, captain of Vau- 
couleurs. The soldier gave a cool recep- 
tion to the peasant, and told him that the 
best thing to be done was " to give her a 
good whipping," and take her back to her 
father. She was not discouraged ; she 
would go to him, and forced her uncle to 
accompany her. This was the decisive mo- 



40 JOAN OF ARC, 

ment ; she quitted forever her village and 
family, and embraced her friends, above 
all, her good little friend, Mengette, whom 
she recommended to God's keeping ; as to 
her elder friend and companion, Haumette, 
her whom she loved most of all, she pre- 
ferred quitting without leave-taking. 

At length she reached this city of Vau- 
couleurs, attired in her coarse red peasant's 
dress, and took up her lodging with her 
uncle at the house of a wheelwright, whose 
wife conceived a friendship for her. She 
got herself taken to Baudricourt, and said 
to him in a firm tone, " That she came to 
him from her Lord, to the end that he might 
send the dauphin word to keep firm, and to 
fix no day of battle with the enemy, for 
his Lord would send him succor in Mid- 
Lent. . . . The realm was not the dau- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 41 

phin's but her Lord's ; nevertheless, her 
Lord willed the dauphin to be king, and to 
hold the realm in trust." She added, that 
despite the dauphin's enemies, he would 
be king, and that she would take him to 
be crowned. 

The captain was much astonished : he 
suspected that the devil must have a hand 
in the matter. Thereupon, he consulted 
the cure^ who, apparently, partook his 
doubts. She had not spoken of her vis- 
ions to any priest or churchman. So the 
ctire accompanied the captain to the wheel- 
wright's house, showed his stole, and adjured 
Jeanne to depart if sent by the evil spirit. 

But the people had no doubts ; they 
were struck with admiration. From all 
sides, crowds flocked to see her. A gentle- 
man, to try her, said to her, " Well, sweet- 



42 JOAN OF ARC, 

heart ; after all, the king will be driven 
out of the kingdom, and we must turn 
English." She complained to him of Bau- 
dricourt's refusal to take her to the dauphin ; 
" And yet," she said, " before Mid-Lent, 
I must be with the king, even were I to 
wear out my legs to the knees ; for no one 
in the world, nor kings, nor dukes, nor 
daughter of the king of Scotland, can re- 
cover the kingdom of France, and he has 
no other who can succor him save myself, 
albeit I would prefer staying and spinning 
with my poor mother, but this is no work 
of my own ; I must go and do it, for it is 
my Lord's will."— " And who is your 

iQYd ? " " Grod ? " . . . The gentleman was 

touched. He pledged her " his faith, his 
hand placed in hers, that, with God's guid- 
ing, he would conduct her to the king." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 43 

A young man, of gentle birth, felt himself 
touched likewise; and declared that he 
would follow this holy maid. 

It appears that Baudricourt sent to ask 
the king's pleasure ; and that in the interim 
he took Jeanne to see the duke of Lorraine, 
who was ill, and desired to consult her. 
All that the duke got from her was advice to 
appease God by reconciling himself with 
his wife. Nevertheless, he gave her en- 
couragement. 

On returning to Vaucouleurs she found 
there a messenger from the king, who author- 
ized her to repair to court. The reverse 
of the Battle of Herrings ^ had determined 



^ In 1429 provisions were sent to theEnglish 
army besieging Orleans. The French made an un- 
successful attempt to capture the provisions, which 
consisted largely of herrings. This gave the name 
to the battle. 



44 JOAN OF ARC, 

Hs counselors to try any and every means. 
Jeanne had proclaimed tlie battle and its 
result on the very day it was fought ; and 
the people of Vaucouleurs, no longer doubt- 
ing her mission, subscribed to equip her 
and buy her a horse. Baudricourt only 
gave her a sword. 

At this moment an obstacle arose. Her 
parents, informed of her approaching depar- 
ture, nearly lost their senses, and made the 
strongest efforts to retain her, commanding, 
threatening. She withstood this last trial ; 
and got a letter written to them, beseech- 
ing them to forgive her. 

The journey she was about to undertake 
was a rough and a most dangerous one. The 
whole country was overrun by the men-at- 
arms of both parties. There was neither 
road, nor bridge, and the rivers were 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 45 

swollen: it was the montli of February, 
1429. 

To travel at such a time with five or six 
men-at-arms was enough to alarm a young 
girl. An English woman, or a German, 
would never have risked such a step ; the 
indelicacy of the proceeding would have 
horrified her. Jeanne was nothing moved 
by it ; she was too pure to entertain any 
fears of the kind. She wore a man's dress, 
a dress she wore to the last : this close and 
closely fastened dress was her best safe- 
guard. Yet was she young and beautiful. 
But there was around her, even to those 
who were most with her, a barrier raised 
by religion and fear. The youngest of the 
gentlemen who formed her escort, deposes 
that though sleeping near her, the shadow of 
an impure thought never crossed his mind, 



46 JOAN OF ARC, 

She traversed with heroic serenity these 
districts, either desert, or infested with sol- 
diers. Her companions regretted having 
set out with her, some of them thinking 
that she might be perhaps a witch ; and 
they felt a strong desire to abandon her. 
For herself, she was so tranquil, that she 
would stop at every town to hear mass. 
" Fear nothing," she said, " God guides me 
my way ; 'tis for this I was born." And 
again, " My brothers in paradise tell me 
what I am to do." 

Charles Vll.th's [the Dauphin's] court 
was far from being unanimous in favor of 
the Pucelle. This inspired maid, coming 
from Lorraine, and encouraged by the duke 
of Lorraine, could not fail to strengthen 
the queen's and her mother's party, the 
party of Lorraine and of Anjou, with the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 47 

king. An ambuscade was laid for tlie 
Pucelle some distance from Cliinon, and it 
was a miracle slie escaped. 

So strong was the opposition to her, 
that when she arrived, the question of her 
being admitted to the king's presence was 
debated for two days in the council. Her 
enemies hoped to adjourn the matter indef- 
initely, by proposing that an inquiry should 
be instituted concerning her in her native 
place. Fortunately [there were not only 
enemies in this council, but] she had friends 
as well [including] the two queens, we may 
be assured, and, especially, the duke of 
Alencon, who, having recently left English 
keeping, was impatient to carry the war 
into the north in order to recover his duchy. 
The men of Orleans, to whom Dunois had 
been promising this heavenly aid ever since 



48 JOAN OF AEC, 

the 12tli of February, sent to the king and 
claimed the Pucelle. 

'At last the king received her, and sur- 
rounded by all the splendor of his court, in 
the hope, apparently, of disconcerting her. 
It was evening ; the light of fifty torches 
illumed the hall, and a brilliant array of 
nobles and above three hundred knights 
v^ere assembled round the monarch. Every 
one was curious to ©ee the sorceress, or, as 
it might be, the inspired maid. 

The sorceress was eighteen years of age ; 
she was a beautiful and most desirable girl, 
of good height, and with a sweet and heart- 
touching voice. 

She entered the splendid circle with all 
humility " like a poor little shepherdess," 
distinguished at the first glance the king, 
who had purposely kept himself amidst the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 49 ' 

crowd of courtiers, and althougli at first lie 
maintained that he was not the king, she 
fell down and embraced his knees. But as 
he had not been crowned, she only styled 
him dauphin : — " Gentle dauphin," she ad- 
dressed him, " my name is Jehanne la 
Pucelle. The King of heaven sends you 
word by me that you shall be consecrated 
and crowned in the city of Heims, and 
shall be lieutenant of the King of heaven, 
who is king of France." The king then 
took her aside, and, after a moment's con- 
sideration, both changed countenance. She 
told him, as she subsequently acknowledged 
to her confessors : — " I am commissioned by 
my Lord to tell you that you are the t/rue 
lieir to the French throne, and the Mug's 



sour ^ 



1 According to a somewhat later, but still very 



50 JOAN OF ARC, 

A cireumstance whicli awoke still greater 
astoniskment and a sort of fear is, that the 
first prediction which fell from her lips was 
accomplished the instant it was made. A 
soldier who was struck by her beauty, and 
who expressed his desires aloud with the 
coarseness of the camp, and swearing by 
his Grod : " Alas ! " she exclaimed, " thou 
deniest him, and art so near thy death ! " 
A moment after, he fell into the river and 
was drowned. 

Her enemies started the objection, that if 

she knew the future it must be through the 

probable, account, she reminded him of a circum- 
stance knoAvn to himself alone ; namely, that one 
morning in his oratory he had prayed to God to 
restore his kingdom to him if he were the lawful 
heir^ but that if he were not, that He would grant 
him the mercy not to be killed or thrown into 
prison but to be able to take refuge in Spain or in 
Scotland. — Sala, Exemplesde Hardiesse, MS. Fran- 
gais, de la Bibl. Royale, No. 180. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. / 51 

devil. Four or five bishops were got to- 
gether to examine her ; but through fear, 
no doubt, of compromising themselves 
with either of the parties which divided 
the court, they referred the examination to 
the University of Poitiers, in which great 
city was both university, parliament, and a 
number of able men. 

The archbishop of Reims, chancellor of 
France, president of the royal council, issued 
his mandate to the doctors, and to the pro- 
fessors of theology — the one priests, the 
others monks, and charged them to examine 
the Pucelle. 

When the doctors had been introduced, 
and placed in a hall, the young maid seated 
herself at the end of the bench, and replied 
to their questionings. She related mth a 
simplicity that rose to grandeur the appa- 



52 JOAN OF ARC, 

ritions of angels with wliicli she had been 
visited, and their words. A single objec- 
tion was raised by a Dominican, but it was 
a serious one — " Jehanne, thou sayest that 
God wishes to deliver the people of France ; 
if such be his will, he has no need of men-at- 
arms." She was not disconcerted : — " Ah ! 
my God," was her reply, " the men-at-arms 
will fight, and God will give the victory." 
Another was more difficult to be satisfied 
— a Limousin, brother Seguin, professor of 
theology at the university of Poitiers, a 
" very sour man," says the chronicle. He 
asked her in his Limousin French, what 
tongue that pretended celestial voice spoke ? 
Jehanne answered, a little too hastily, " A 
better than yours." — " Dost thou believe in 
God ? " said the doctor, in a rage : " Now, 
God wills us not to have faith in thy words, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 53 

except thou showest a sign." She replied, 
" I have not come to Poitiers to show signs 
or work miracles; my sign will be the 
raising of the siege of Orleans. Give me 
men-at-arms, few or many, and I will go." 

Meanwhile, it happened at Poitiers as at 
Vaucouleurs, her sanctity seized the hearts 
of the people. In a moment, all were for 
her. Women, ladies, citizens' wives, all 
flocked to see her at the house where she 
was staying, with the wife of an advocate 
to the parliament, and all returned full of 
emotion. Men went there too ; and coun- 
selors, advocates, old hardened judges, who 
had suffered themselves to be taken thither 
incredulously, when they had heard her, 
wept even as the women did, and said, 
" The maid is of God." 

The examiners themselves went to see 



54 JOAN OF ARC, 

lier, with the king's equerry ; and on their 
reconimencing their never-ending examina- 
tion, quoting learnedly to her, and proving 
to her from the writings of all the doctors 
that she ought not to be believed, " Heark- 
en," she said to them, "there is more in 
God's book than in yours. ... I know 
neither A nor B ; but I come commissioned 
by God to raise the siege of Orleans, and 
to have the dauphin crowned at Reims. 
. . . First, however, I must write to the 
English, and summon them to depart ; God 
will have it so. Have you paper and ink ? 
Write as I dictate. ... To you ! Suffort, 
Classidas, and La Poule, I summon you on 
the part of the King of heaven, to depart 
to England." .... They wrote as she 
dictated ; she had won over her very 
judges. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 55 

They pronounced, as their opinion, that 
it was lawful to have recourse to the young 
maiden. The archbishop of Embrun, who 
had been consulted, pronounced similarly ; 
supporting his opinion by showing how 
God had frequently revealed to virgins, 
for instance, to the sibyls, what he con- 
cealed from men ; how the demon could 
not make a covenant with a virgin ; and 
recommending it to be ascertained whether 
Jehanne were a virgin. Thus, being pushed 
to extremity, and either not being able or 
being unwilling to explain the delicate 
distinction betwixt good and evil revela- 
tions, knowledge humbly referred a ghostly 
matter to a corporeal test, and made this 
grave question of the spirit depend on 
woman's mystery. 

As the doctors could not decide, the 



56 JOAN OF ARC, 

ladies did ; and the honor of the Pucelle 
was vindicated by a jury, with the good 
queen of Sicily, the king's mother-in-law, 
at their head. This farce over ; and some 
Franciscans who had been deputed to in- 
quire into Jehanne's character in her own 
country bringing the most favorable report, 
there was no time to lose. Orleans was 
crying out for succor, and Dunois sent en- 
treaty upon entreaty. The Pucelle was 
equipped, and a kind of establishment ar- 
ranged for her. For squire she had a brave 
knight, of mature years, Jean Daulon, one 
of Dunois's household, and of its best con- 
ducted and most discreet members. She 
had, also, a noble page, two heralds-at-arms, 
a maitre d'hotel^ and two valets : her brother, 
Pierre Dare, too, was one of her attendants. 
Jean Pasquerel, a brother hermit of the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 57 

order of St. Augustin, was given ner for 
confessor. Generally speaking, the monks, 
particularly the mendicants, were stanch 
supporters of this marvel of inspiration. 

And it was, in truth for those who be- 
held the sight, a marvel to see for the first 
time Jehanne Dare in her white armor and 
on her beautiful black horse, at her side a 
small ax, and the sword of Saint-Catherine,^ 
which sword had been discovered, on her 
intimation, behind the altar of Saint-Cath- 
erine-de-Fierbois. In her hand she bore a 
white standard, embroidered with fleurs-de- 
lis, and on which God was represented with 
the world in his hands, having on his right 
and left two angels, each holding a fleur- 

1 Virgin and martyr of Alexandria in the fourth 
century. She was broken at the wheel, and pictures 
represent her always with that instrument of tor- 
ture at hand. 



58 JOAN OF ARC, 

de-lis. "I will not," she said, "use my 
sword to slay any one ; " and slie added, 
that although she loved her sword, she 
loved " forty times more " her standard. 
Let us contrast the two parties, at the mo- 
ment of her departure for Orleans. 

The English had been much reduced by 
their long winter siege. After Salisbury's 
death, many men-at-arms whom he had en- 
gaged thought themselves relieved from 
their engagements and departed. The 
Burgundians, too, had been recalled by their 
duke. When the most important of the 
English bastilles was forced, into which the 
defenders of some other bastilles had thrown 
themselves, only five hundred men were 
found in it. In all, the English force may 
have amounted to two or three thousand 
men ; and of this small number part were 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 59 

French, and, no doubt, not to be much de- 
pended upon by the English. 

Collected together, they would have con- 
stituted a respectable force ; but they were 
distributed among a dozen bastilles or 
boulevards, between which there was, for 
the most part, no communication ; a dis- 
position of their forces, which proves that 
Talbot and the other English leaders had 
hitherto been rather brave and lucky than 
intelligent and skilful. It was evident that 
each of these small isolated forts would be 
weak against the large city which they pre- 
tended to hold in check ; that its numerous 
population, rendered warlike by a siege, 
would at last besiege the besiegers. 

On reading the formidable list of the 
captains who threw themselves into Orleans, 
La Hire, Saintrailles, Gaucourt, Culan, 



60 JOAN OF ARC, 

Coaraze, Armagnac ; and remembering that, 
independently of tlie Bretons under Mar- 
shal de Retz, and the Gascons under Mar- 
shal de St. Severe — the captain of Chateau- 
dun, Florent d'llliers, had brought all the 
nobility of the neighborhood with him to 
this short expedition, the deliverance of 
Orleans seems less miraculous. 

It must, however, be acknowledged that 
for this great force to act with efficiency, 
the one essential and indispensable req- 
uisite, unity of action, was wanting. Had 
skill and intelligence sufficed to impart it, 
the want would have been supplied by 
Dunois ; but there was something more re- 
quired — authority, and more than royal 
authority, too, for the king's captains were 
little in the habit of obeying the king: 
to subject these savage, untamable spirits, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 61 

God's authority was called for. Now, tlie 
God of this age was the Virgin much more 
than Christ ; and it behooved that the Vir- 
gin should descend upon earth, be a popu- 
lar Virgin, young, beauteous, gentle, bold. 

War had changed men into wild beasts ; 
these beasts had to be restored to human 
shape, and be converted into docile Chris- 
tian men — a great and a hard change. 
Some of these Armagnac captains were, 
perhaps, the most ferocious mortals that 
ever existed ; as may be inferred from the 
name of but one of them, a name that 
strikes terror, Gilles de Retz, the original 
of Blue Beard. 

One hold, however, was left upon their 
souls ; they had cast off humanity and na- 
ture without having been able wholly to 
disengage themselves from religion. These 



62 JOAN OF ARC, 

brigands, it is true, hit upon strange means 
of reconciling religion and robbery. One 
of them, the Gascon La Hire, gave vent to 
the original remark, " Were Grod to turn 
man-at-arms, he would be a plunderer ; " and 
when he went on a foray, he offered up his 
little Gascon prayer without entering too 
minutely into his wants, conceiving that 
God would take a hint — " Sire God, I pray 
thee to do for La Hire what La Hire would 
do for thee, wert thou a captain, and were 
La Hire God.'^^ 

It was at once a risible and a touching 
sight to see the sudden conversion of the old 
Armagnac brigands. They did not reform 
by halves. La Hire durst no longer swear ; 

1 " Sire Dieu, je te prie de faire pour la Hire ce 
que La Hire ferait pour toi, situ etais capitaine et 
si La Hire etait Dieu." Memoires concernant la 
Pucelle, Collection Petitot, viii. 127. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 63 

and the Pucelle took compassion on the 
violence he did himself, and allowed him 
to swear " by his baton." The devils found 
themselves all of a sudden turned into 
little saints. 

The Pucelle had begun by requiring 
them to give up their mistresses, and attend 
to confession. Next, on their march along 
the Loire, she had an altar raised in the open 
air, at which she partook of the commun- 
ion, and they as well. The beauty of the 
season, the charm of a spring in Touraine, 
must have added singularly to the relig- 
ious supremacy of the young maid. They 
themselves had grown young again, had 
utterly forgotten what they were, and felt, 
as in the spring-time of life, full of good- 
will and of hope, all young like her, all 
children. . . . With her they commenced, 



64 JOAN OF ARC. 

and unreservedly, a new life. Where was 
she leading them ? Little did it matter to 
them. They would have followed her, not 
to Orleans only, but just as readily to Jeru- 
salem. And the English were welcome to 
go thither too ; in a letter she addressed to 
them she graciously proposed that they all, 
French and English, should unite, and 
proceed conjointly to deliver the Holy 
Sepulcher. 

The first night of encamping she lay 
down all armed, having no females with 
her ; and, not being yet accustomed to the 
hardships of such a mode of life, felt indis- 
posed the next day. As to danger, she 
knew not what it meant. She wanted to 
cross the river, and advance on the northern 
or English side, right among their bastilles, 
asserting that the enemy would not budge ; 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 65 

but the captains would not listen to lier, 
and they followed the other bank, crossing 
two leagues below Orleans. Dunois came 
to meet her : " I bring you," she said, " the 
best succor mortal ever received, that of the 
King of heaven. It is no succor of mine, 
but from Grod himself, who, at the prayer 
of St. Louis and St. Charlemagne, has 
taken pity on the town of Orleans, and 
will not allow the enemy to have at one and 
the same time the duke's body and his city. 

She entered the city at eight o'clock of 
the evening of April 29th, and so great 
and so eager was the crowd, striving to 
touch her horse at least, that her progress 
through the streets was exceedingly slow ; 
they gazed at her " as if they were behold- 
ing God." ^ She rode along speaking kind- 

1 She seemed, at the least, an angel, a creature 



66 JOAN OF ARC, 

ly to the people, and, after offering up 
prayers in the church, repaired to the house 
of the Duke of Orleans' treasurer ; an hon- 
orable man, whose wife and daughters 
gladly welcomed her ; she slept with Char- 
lotte, one of the daughters. 

She had entered the city with the sup- 
plies ; but the main body of the relieving 
force fell down as far as Blois, where 
it crossed the river. Nevertheless she was 
eager for an immediate attack on the Eng- 
lish bastilles, and would summon the 
northern bastilles to surrender, a summons 
which she repeated, and then proceeded to 

above all physical wants. At times, she would 
continue a whole day on horseback, without alight- 
ing, eating or drinking, and would only take in 
the evening some sippets of bread in wine and 
water. See the evidence of the various wit- 
nesses, and the Chronique de la Pucelle, ed. 
Buchon (1827), p. 309. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 67 

summon the southern bastilles. Here 
Glasdale overwhelmed her with abuse, 
calling her cow-herd and prostitute (vachere 
et rihaude). In reality, they believed her 
to be a sorceress, and felt great terror of her. 
They detained her herald-at-arms, and were 
minded to burn him, in the hope that it 
would break the charm; but, first, they 
considered it advisable to consult the doc- 
tors of the university of Paris. Besides, 
Dunois threatened to retaliate on their her- 
ald whom he had in his power. As to the 
Pucelle, she had no fears for her herald, 
but sent another, saying, " Go, tell Talbot 
if he will appear in arms, so will I. . . . 
If he can take me, let him burn me." 

The array delaying, Dunois ventured 
to sally forth in search of it ; and the 
Pucelle, left behind, found herself absolute 



68 JOAN OF ARC, 

mistress of the city, where all authority 
but hers seemed to be at an end. She 
caracolled round the walls, and the people 
followed her fearlessly. The next day 
she rode out to reconnoiter the English 
bastilles, and young women and children 
went, too, to look at these famous bastilles, 
where all remained still, and betrayed no 
sign of movement. She led back the 
crowd with her to attend vespers at the 
church of Saint-Croix ; and as she wept at 
prayers, they all wept likewise. The citi- 
zens were beside themselves ; they were 
raised above all fears, were drunk with re- 
ligion and with war, — seized by one of 
those formidable accesses of fanaticism in 
which men can do all, and believe all, and 
in which they are scarcely less terrible to 
friends than to enemies. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 69 

Charles Vllth's chancellor, the arch- 
bishop of Reims, had detained the small 
army at Blois. The old politician was far 
from imagining such resistless enthusiasm, 
or, perhaps, he dreaded it. So he repaired 
to Orleans with great unwillingness. The 
Pucelle, followed by the citizens and 
priests singing hymns, went to meet him, 
and the whole procession passed and re- 
passed the English bastilles. The army 
entered, protected by priests and a girl. 

This girl, who, with all her enthusiasm 
and inspiration, had great penetration, was 
quickly aware of the cold malevolence of 
the newcomers, and perceived that they 
wanted to do without her, at the risk of 
ruining all. Dunois having owned to her 
that he feared the enemy's being reinforced 
by the arrival of fresh troops under Sir 



70 JOAN OF ARC, 

Jolin Falstaff, " Bastard, bastard," she said 
to Mm, " in God's name I command thee as 
soon as you know of his coming to apprise 
me of it, for if he passes without my 
knowledge, I promise you that I will take 
off your head." 

She was right in supposing that they 
wished to do without her. As she was 
snatching a moment's rest with her young 
bedfellow, Charlotte, she suddenly starts 
up, and exclaims, " Great God, the blood 
of our countrymen is running on the 
ground .... 'tis ill done ! why did they 
not awake me ? Quick, my arms, my 
horse ! " She was armed in a moment, 
and finding her young page playing below, 
" Cruel boy," she said to him, " not to tell 
me that the blood of France was spilling." 
She set off at a gallop, and coming upon 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 71 

tlie wounded who were being brought in, 
"Never," she exclaimed, "have I seen a 
Frenchman's blood without my hair rising 
up ! " 

On her arrival, the flying rallied. Dunois, 
who had not been apprised any more than 
she, came up at the same time. The bas- 
tille (one of the northern bastilles) was 
once more attacked. Talbot endeavored 
to cover it ; but fresh troops sallying out 
of Orleans, the Pucelle put herself at their 
head, Talbot drew off his men, and the 
fort was carried. ' 

Many of the English who had put on 
the priestly habit by way of protection 
were brought in by the Pucelle, and placed 
in her own house to ensure their safety ; 
she knew the ferocity of her followers. It 
was her first victory, the first time she had 



72 JOAN OF ARC, 

ever seen a field of carnage. She wept on 
seeing so many human beings who had 
perished unconfessed. She desired the 
benefit of confession for herself and retain- 
ers, and as the next day was Ascension 
Day, declared her intention of communica- 
ting and of passing the day in prayer. 

They took advantage of this to hold a 
council without her; at which it was de- 
termined to cross the Loire and attack St. 
Jean-le-Blanc, the bastille which most ob- 
structed the introduction of supplies, mak- 
ing at the same time a false attack on the 
side of La Beauce. The Pucelle's enviers 
told her of the false attack only ; but Du- 
nois apprised her of the truth. 

The English then did what they ought 
to have done before : they concentrated 
their strength. Burning down the bastille, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 73 

wliicli was the object of the intended 
attack, they fell back on the two other 
bastilles on the south — the Augustins' 
and the Tournelles : but the Aus:ustins' 
was at once attacked and carried. This 
success, again, was partly due to the Pucelle ; 
for the French being seized with a panic 
terror, and retreating precipitately towards 
the floating bridge which had been thrown 
over the river, the Pucelle and La Hire dis- 
engaged themselves from the crowd, and, 
crossing in boats, took the English in flank. 
There remained the Tournelles, before 
which bastille the conquerors passed the 
night ; but they constrained the Pucelle, 
who had not broken her fast the whole day 
(it was Friday), to recross the Loire. Mean- 
while the council assembled : and in the 
evening it was announced to the Pucelle 



74 JOAN OF ARC, 

that tliey liad unanimously determined, 
as the city was now well victualed, to wait 
for reinforcements before attacking the 
Tournelles. It is difficult to suppose such 
to have been the serious intention of the 
chiefs ; the English momentarily expecting 
the arrival of Sir John Falstaff with fresh 
troops, all delay was dangerous. Probably 
the object was to deceive the Pucelle, and 
to deprive her of the honor of the success to 
which she had largely prepared the way. 
But she was not to be caught in the snare. 

"You have been at your council," she 
said " I have been at mine," then, turning to 
her chaplain, " come to-morrow at break of 
day and quit me not ; I shall have much to 
do — blood will go out of my body ; I shall 
be wounded below my bosom." 

In the morning, her host endeavored to 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 75 

detain her. " Stay, Jeanne," lie said, " let us 

partake together of this fish, which is just 

fresh caught." "Keep it," she answered 

gaily, " keep it till night, when I shall come 

back over the bridge, after having taken 

the Tournelles, and I "will bring you a 

godden to eat of it with us." ^ 

Then she hurried forward with a number 

of men-at-arms and of citizens to the porte 

de Bourgogne / which she found kept closed 

by the Sire de Gaucourt, grand master of 

the king's household. " You are a ^vicked 

man," said Jeanne to him ; "bat whether 

you will or not, the men-at-arms shall pass." 

Gaucourt felt that with this excited mul- 

^ ' ' The witness Colette deposed that Godon 
[Godden ?] was a nickname for the English, taken 
from their common exclamation of ' God damn it,' 
so that this vulgarity was a national characteristic 
in the reign of Henry VI." — Note, p. 78, vol iii., 
Turner's Hist, of England. 



76 JOAN OF ARC, 

titude his life hung by a thread ; and be- 
sides, his own followers would not obey 
him. The crowd opened the gate, and 
forced another which was close to it. 

The sun was rising upon the Loire at 
the very moment this multitude were throw- 
ing themselves into boats. However, when 
they reached the Tonrnelles they found 
their want of artillery, and sent for it 
into the town. At last they attacked the 
redoubt which covered the bastille. The 
English made a brave defense. Perceiv- 
ing that the assailants began to slacken 
in their efforts, the Pucelle threw herself 
into the fosse, seized a ladder, and was rear- 
ing it against the wall, when she was struck 
by an arrow betwixt her neck and shoulder. 
The English rushed out to make her 
prisoner, but she was borne off. Removed 




The Maid of Orleans wounded. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 77 

from the scene of conflict, laid on the grass 
and disarmed, when she saw how deep the 
wound was — the arrow's point came out be- 
hind — she was terrified, and burst into tears. 
Suddenly she rises ; her holy ones had ap- 
peared to her ; she repels the men-at-arms, 
who were for charming the wound by words, 
protesting that she would not be cured 
contrary to the Divine will. She only 
allowed a dressing of oil to be applied to 
the wound, and then confessed herself. 

Meanwhile no progress was made, and it 
was near nightfall. Dunois himself ordered 
the retreat to be sounded. " Rest awhile," 
she said, " eat and drink ; " and she betook 
herself to prayers in a vineyard. A Basque 
soldier had taken from the hands of the 
Pucelle's squire her banner, that banner 
so dreaded by the enemy : " As soon as 



78 JOAN OF ARC, 

the standard shall touch the wall," she ex- 
claimed, " you can enter." — " It touches 
it." — "Then enter, all is yours." And, in 
fact, the assailants, transported beyond 
themselves, mounted " as if at a bound." 
The English were at this moment attacked 
on both sides at once. 

For the citizens of Orleans, who had 
eagerly watched the struggle from the other 
side of the Loire, could no longer con- 
tain themselves, but opened their gates 
and rushed upon the bridge. One of the 
arches being broken, they threw over it 
a sorry plank ; and a knight of St. John, 
completely armed, was the first to venture 
across. At last, the bridge was repaired 
after a fashion, and the crowd flowed over. 
The English, seeing this sea of people 
rushing on, thought that the whole world 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. ^g 

was got together. Their imaginations grew 
excited : some saw St. Aignan, the patron 
of the city ; others the Archangel Michael 
fighting on the French side. As Grlasdale 
was about to retreat from the redoubt 
into the bastille, across a small bridge 
which connected the two, the bridge was 
shivered by a cannon-ball, and he was pre- 
^ cipitated into the water below, and drowned 
before the eyes of the Pucelle, whom 
he had so coarsely abused. " Ah ! " she ex- 
claimed, " how I pity thy soul." There 
were five hundred men in the bastille : 
they were all put to the sword. 

Not an Englishman remained to the 
south of the Loire. On the next day, 
Sunday, those who were on the north side 
abandoned their bastilles, their artillery, 
their prisoners, their sick. Talbot and 



80 JOAN OF ARC, 

Suffolk directed the retreat, whicli was 
made in good order, and with a bold front. 
The Pucelle forbade pursuit, as they retired 
of their own accord. But before they had 
lost sight of the city, she ordered an altar 
to be raised in the plain, had mass sung, 
and the Orleanois returned thanks to God 
in presence of the enemy (Sunday, May 8). 

The effect produced by the deliverance of 
Orleans was beyond calculation. All rec- 
ognized it to be the work of a supernatural 
power ; which though some ascribed to the 
devil's agency, most referred to God, and it 
began to be the general impression that 
Charles VII. had right on his side. 

Six days after the raising of the siege, 
Gersoni published a discourse to prove that 

^ John Gerson, one of the most learned theolo- 
gians of the day. He died in July of that year. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 81 

this marvelous event might be reasonably 
considered God's own doing. The good 
Christine de Pisan^ also wrote tO' congrat- 
ulate her sex ; and many treatises were 
published, more favorable than hostile to 
the Pucelle, and even by subjects of the 
Duke of Burgundy, the ally of the English. 

CORONATION OF CHARLES VII. 

Charles Vllth's policy was to seize the 
opportunity, march boldly from Orleans to 
Reims, and lay hand on the crown — seem- 
ingly a rash, but in reality a safe, step — be- 
fore the English had recovered from their 
panic. Since they had committed the cap- 
ital blunder of not having yet crowned 
their young Henry VI. , it behooved to be 

^ One of the most prominent women in France at 
that time, a voluminous writer of both prose and 
verse, chiefly on moral subjects. 



82 JOAN OF ARC, 

beforeliand with tlieiii. He who was first 
anointed king would remain king. It 
would also be a great thing for Charles VII. 
to make his royal progress through English 
France, to take possession, to show that in 
every part of France the king was at home. 
Such was the counsel of the Pucelle alone, 
and this heroic folly was consummate wis- 
dom. The politic and shrewd among the 
royal counselors, those whose judgment 
was held in most esteem, smiled at the idea, 
and recommended proceeding slowly and 
surely : in other words, giving the English 
time to recover their spirits. They all, too, 
had an interest of their own in the advice 
they gave. The Duke of Alencon recom- 
mended marching into Normandy — with a 
view to the recovery of Alencon. Others, 
and they were listened to, counseled stay- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 83 

ing upon the Loire, and reducing the smaller 
towns. This was the most timid counsel 
of all ; but it was to the interest of the 
houses of Orleans and of Anjou, and of the 
Poitevin, La Tre'mouille, Charles Vllth's 
favorite. 

Suffolk had thrown himself into Jargeau : 
it was attacked and carried by assault. 
Eeaugency was next taken before Talbot 
could receive the reinforcement sent him by 
the regent, under the command of Sir John 
Falstaff. The constable, Richemont, who 
had long remained secluded in his own do- 
mains, came with his Bretons, contrary to 
the wishes of either the king or the Pucelle, 
to the aid of the victorious army. 

A battle was imminent, and Richemont 
was come to carry off its honors. Talbot 
and Falstaff had effected a junction ; but, 



84 JOAN OF ARC, 

strange to tell, though the circumstance 
paints to the life the state of the country 
and the fortuitous nature of the war, no one 
knew where to find the English army, lost 
in the desert of La Bauce, the which dis- 
trict was then overrun with thickets and 
brambles. A stag led to the discovery ; 
chased by the French vanguard, the sacred 
animal rushed into the English ranks. 

The English happened to be on their 
march, and had not, as usual, intrenched 
themselves behind their stakes. Talbot 
alone wished to give battle, maddened as he 
was at having shown his back to the French 
at Orleans. Sir John Falstaff, on the con- 
trary, who had gained the Battle of Her- 
rings, did not require to fight, to recover his 
reputation, but with much prudence advised, 
as the troops were discouraged, remaining on 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 85 

the defensive. The French men-at-arms did 
not wait for the English leaders to make 
lip their minds, but, coming up at a gallop, 
encountered but slight resistance. Talbot 
would fight, seeking, perhaps, to fall ; but he 
only succeeded in getting made prisoner. 
The pursuit was murderous ; and the bodies 
of two thousand of the English strewed 
the plain. At the sight of such numbers 
of dead La Pucelle shed tears ; but she 
wept much more bitterly when she saw the 
brutality of the soldiery, and how they 
treated prisoners who had no ransom to 
give. Perceiving one of them felled, dying, 
to the ground, she was no longer mistress 
of herself, but threw herself from her horse, 
raised the poor man's head, sent for a priest, 
comforted him, and smoothed his way to 
death. 



86 JOAN OF ARC, 

After this battle of Patay (June 28 
or 29), the hour was come, or never, to 
hazard the expedition to Reims. The 
politic still advised remaining on the Loire 
and the securing possession of Cosne and 
La Charite' This time they spoke in vain ; 
timid voices could no longer gain a hearing. 
Every day there flocked to the camp men 
from all the provinces, attracted by the re- 
ports of the Pucelle's miracles, believing in 
her only and like, her, longing to lead the 
king to Reims. There was an irresistible im- 
pulse abroad to push forward and drive out 
the English — the spirit both of pilgrimage 
and of crusade. The indolent young mon- 
arch himself was at last hurried away by 
this popular tide, which swelled and rolled 
in northwards. King, courtiers, politicians, 
enthusiasts, fools, and wise, were off to- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 87 

gether, eitlier voluntarily or compulsorily. 
At starting tliey were twelve thousand; 
but the mass gathered bulk as it rolled 
along, fresh comers following fresh comers. 
They who had no armor joined the holy ex- 
pedition with no other defense than a leath- 
ern jack, as archers or as coutiliei'S (dags- 
men), although, may be, of gentle blood. 

The army marched from Gien on the 
28 th of June, and passed before Auxerre 
without attempting to enter ; this city being 
in the hands of the Duke of Burgundy, 
whom it was advisable to observe terms 
with. Troyes was garrisoned partly by 
Burgundians, partly by English ; and they 
ventured on a sally at the first approach of 
the royal army. There seemed little hope 
of forcing so large and well garrisoned 
a city and especially without artillery. 



88 JOAN OF ARC, 

And how delay, in order to invest it regu- 
larly? On the other hand, how advance 
and leave so strong a place in their rear ? 
Already, too, the army was suffering from 
want of provisions. Would it not be better 
to return ? The politic were full of triumph 
at the verification of their forebodings. 
There was but one old Armagnac coun- 
selor, the president Macon, who held the 
contrary opinion, and who understood 
that in an enterprise of the kind the vidse 
part was the enthusiastic one, that in a 
popular crusade reasoning was beside the 
mark. " When the king undertook this ex- 
pedition," he argued, " it was not because he 
had an overwhelming force, or because he 
had full coffers, or because it was his opin- 
ion that the attempt was practicable, but be- 
cause Jeanne told him to march forward and 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 89 

be crowned at Reims, and tliat lie would 
encounter but little opposition, such being 
God's good pleasure." 

Here the Pucelle, coming and knocking 
at the door of the room in which the council 
was held, assured them that they should 
enter Troyes in three days. " We would 
willingly wait six," said the chancellor, 
" were we certain that you spoke sooth." — 
" Six ! you shall enter to-morrow." 

She snatches up her standard ; all the 
troops follow her to the fosse, and they 
throw into it fagots, doors, tables, rafters, 
whatever they can lay their hands upon. 
So quickly was the whole done, that the 
citizens thought there would soon be no 
fosses. The English began to lose their 
head as at Orleans, and fancied they saw a 
cloud of white butterflies hovering around 



90 JOAN OF ARC, 

the magic standard. The citizens, for their 
part, were filled with alarm, remembering 
that it was in their city the treaty had been 
concluded which disinherited Charles VII. 
They feared being made an example of, 
took refuge in the two churches, and cried 
out to surrender. The garrison asked no 
better, opened a conference, and capit- 
ulated on condition of being allowed to 
march out with what they had. 

Wliat they A«(i was, principally, prisoners, 
Frenchmen. No stipulation on behalf of 
these unhappy men had been made by 
Charles's counselors who drew up the 
terms of surrender. The Pucelle alone 
thought of them; and when the English 
were about to march forth with their man- 
acled prisoners, she stationed herself at the 
gates^ exclaiming, " O my God ! they shall 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 91 

not bear them away ! " She detained them, 
and the king paid their ransom. 

Master of Troyes on the 9 th of July, 
[1429] on the 15th he made his entry into 
Reims ; and on the 1 7th (Sunday) he was 
crowned. That very morning the Pucelle, 
fulfilling the gospel command to seek rec- 
onciliation before offering sacrifice, dictated 
a beautiful letter to the Duke of Bur- 
gundy : without recalling anything pain- 
ful, without irritating, without humiliating 
any one, she said to him with infinite 
tact and nobleness — " Forgive one another 
heartily as good Christians ought to do." 

Charles YII. was anointed by the arch- 
bishop with oil out of the holy ampulla, 
brought from Saint-Remy's. Conformably 
with the antique ritual, he was installed 
on his throne by the spiritual peers, and 



92 JOAN OF ARC, 

served by lay peers both during tlie cere- 
mony of the coronation and tlie banquet 
whicli followed. Then he went to St. 
Marculph's to touch for the king's evil.i 
All ceremonies thus duly observed, with- 
out the omission of a single particular, 
Charles was at length, according to the be- 
lief of the time, the true and the only king. 
The English might now crown Henry; 
but in the estimation of the people, this 
new coronation would only be a parody of 
the other. 

At the moment the crown was placed 
on Charles's head, the Pucelle threw her- 
self on her knees, and embraced his legs 
with a flood of tears. All present melted 
into tears as well. 

1 The king's touch, supposed to carry healing, 
was generally believed in and practised in those 
days. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 93 

She is reported to have addressed him 
as follows : — " O gentle Mng, now is ful- 
filled the will of God, who was pleased 
that I should raise the siege of Orleans, 
and should bring you to your city of 
Reims to be crowned and anointed, show- 
ing you to be true king and rightful pos- 
sessor of the realm of France." 
/ The Pucelle was in the right : she had 
done and finished what she had to do : and 
so, amidst the joy of this triumphant so- 
lemnity, she entertained the idea, the pre- 
sentiment, perhaps, of her approaching end. 
When, on entering Reims with the king, 
the citizens came out to meet them singing 
hymns, " Oh, the worthy, devout people ! " 
she exclaimed. . . . " If I must die, happy 
should I feel to be buried here." — "Je- 
hanne," said the archbishop to her, " where 



94 JOAN OF ARC, 

then do you think you will die ? " — ^' I 
have no idea ; where it shall please God. 
... I wish it would please him that I 
should go and tend sheep with my sister 
and my brothers. . . . They would be so 
happy to see me ! ... At least, I have 
done what our Lord commanded me to do." 
And raising her eyes to heaven, she re- 
turned thanks. All who saw her at that 
moment, says the old chronicle, " believed 
more firmly than ever that she was sent 
of God." 

CAEDINAL WINCHESTER. 

Such was the virtue of the coronation, 
and its all-powerful eft'ect in northern 
France, that from this moment the expedi- 
tion seemed but to be a peaceable taking 
of possession, a triumph, a following up of 




Cathedral of Rheims. 



Joan 0/ Are, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 95 

the Reims festivities. The roads became 
smooth before the king ; the cities opened 
their gates and lowered their drawbridges. 
The march was as if a royal pilgrimage 
from the cathedral of Reims to St. Me- 
dard's, Soissons, — and Notre-Dame, Laon. 
Stopping for a few days in each city, and 
then riding on at his pleasure, he made 
his entry into Chateau-Thierry, Provins, 
whence rested and refreshed, he resumed 
his triumphal progress towards Picardy. 

Were there any English left in France ? 
— It might be doubted. Since the battle 
of Patay, not a word had been heard about 
Bedford; not that he lacked activity or 
courage, but that he had exhausted his last 
resources. One fact alone will serve to 
show the extent of his distress — he could 
no longer pay his parliament : the courts 



96 JOAN OF ARC, 

were therefore closed, and even the entry 
of the young king Henry conld not be cir- 
cumstantially recorded, according to cus- 
tom, in the registers, " for want of parch- 
ment." 

So situated, Bedford could not choose 
his means ; and he was obliged to have re- 
course to the man whom of all the world 
he least loved, his uncle, the rich and all- 
powerful Cardinal Winchester, who, not 
less avaricious than ambitious, began hag- 
gling about terms, and speculated upon 
delay. The agreement with him was not 
concluded until the 1st of July, two days 
after the defeat of Patay. Charles VII. 
then entered Troyes, Reims — Paris was 
in alarm, and Winchester was still in Eng- 
land. To make Paris safe, Bedford sum- 
moned the Duke of Burgundy, who came, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 97 

indeed, but almost alone ; and the only 
advantage whicli the regent derived from 
his presence was getting him to figure in 
an assembly of notables, to speak therein, 
and again to recapitulate the lamentable 
story of his father's death. This done, he 
took his departure ; leaving with Bedford, 
as all the aid he could spare, some Picard 
men-at-arms, and even exacting, in return, 
possession of the city of Meaux. 

There was no hope but in Winchester. 
This priest reigned in England. His 
nephew, \h& Protector^ Grloucester, the leader 
of the party of the nobles, had ruined himself 
by his imprudence and follies. From year 
to year, his influence at the council table had 
diminished, and Winchester's had increased. 
He reduced the protector to a cipher, and 
even managed yearly to pare down the in- 



98 JOAN OF ARC, 

come assigned to tlie protectorate : this, in 
a land where each man is strictly valued 
according to his rental, was murdering him. 
Winchester, on the contrary, was the 
wealthiest of the English princes, and one 
of the great pluralists of the world. Power 
follows, as wealth grows. The cardinal, 
and the rich bishops of Canterbury, of 
York, of London, of Ely, and Bath, con- 
stituted the council, and if they allowed 
laymen to sit there, it was only on condi- 
tion that they should not open their lips : 
to important sittings, they were not even 
summoned. The English government, as 
might have been foreseen from the moment 
the house of Lancaster ascended the throne, 
had become entirely episcopal ; a fact evi- 
dent on the face of the acts passed at this 
period. In 1429, the chancellor opens the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 99 

parliament with a tremendous denunciation 
of heresy ; and the council prepares articles 
against the nobles, whom he accuses of 
brigandage, and of surrounding themselves 
with armies of retainers, etc. 

In order to raise the cardinal's power to 
the highest pitch, it required Bedford to be 
sunk as low in France as Gloucester was in 
England, that he should be reduced to 
summon Winchester to his aid, and that 
the latter, at the head of an army, should 
come over and crown the young Henry VI. 
Winchester had the army ready. Having 
been charged by the pope with a crusade 
against the Hussites of Bohemia, he had 
raised, under this pretext, several thousand 
men. The pope had assigned him, for this 
object, the money arising from the sale of 
indulgences ; the council of England gave 

l.tfC. 



100 JOAN OF ARC, 

him more money still to detain his levies in 
France. To tlie great astonishment of the 
crusaders they found themselves sold by 
the cardinal ; who was paid twice over for 
them, paid for an army which served him 
to make himself king. 

"With this army, Winchester was to make 
sure of Paris, and to bring and crown 
young Henry there. But this coronation 
could only secure the cardinal's power, in 
proportion as he should succeed in decrying 
that of Charles VII., in dishonoring his 
victories, and ruining him in the minds of 
the people. Now, he had recourse, as we 
shall see, to one and the same means (a 
very efficacious means in that day) against 
Charles y II. in France, and against Glou- 
cester in England — a charge of sorcery. 

It was not till the 25 th of July, nine 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 101 

days after Charles VII. had been well and 
duly crowned, that the cardinal entered 
with his army into Paris. Bedford lost not 
a moment, but put himself in motion with 
these troops to watch Charles VII. Twice 
they were in presence, and some skirmish- 
ing occurred. Bedford feared for Nor- 
mandy, and covered it ; meanwhile, the 
king marched upon Paris (August). 

This was contrary to the advice of the 
Pucelle ; her voices warned her to go no 
further than St. Denys. The city of royal 
burials, like the city of coronations, was a 
holy city ; beyond, she had a presentiment, 
lay a something over which she would have 
no power. Charles VII. must have thought 
so likewise. Was there not danger in 
bringing this inspiration of Avarlike sanc- 
tity, this poesy of crusade which had so 



102 JOAN OF ARC, 

deeply moved the rural districts, face to 
face witli this reasoning, prosaic city, with 
its sarcastic population, with pedants and 
Cabochiens ? ^ 

It was an imprudent step. A city of the 
kind is not to be carried by a cou]^ de 
main / it is only to be carried by starving 
it out. But this was out of the question, 
for the English held the Seine both above 
and below. They were in force ; and 
were, besides, supported by a considerable 
number of citizens who had compromised 
themselves for them. A report, too, was 
spread that the Armagnacs were coming to 
destroy the city and raze it to the ground. 

Nevertheless, the French carried one of 

^ Butchers. This party had at times absolute 
control of Paris. It was a combination, not a cor- 
poration, of wealthy and influential butchers. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 103 

the outposts. The Pucelle crossed the first 
fosse, and even cleared the mound which 
separated it from the second. Arrived at 
the brink of the latter, she found it full of 
water ; when, regardless of a shower of ar- 
rows poured upon her from the city walls, 
she called for fascines, and began sounding 
the depth of the water with her lance. 
Here she stood, almost alone, a mark to all ; 
and, at last, an arrow pierced her thigh. 
Still, she strove to overcome the pain, and 
to remain to cheer on the troops to the 
assault. But loss of blood compelled her 
to seek the shelter of the first fosse ; and it 
was ten or eleven o'clock at night before 
she could be persuaded to withdraw to the 
camp. She seemed to be conscious that 
this stern check before the walls of Paris 
must ruin her beyond all hope. 



104: JOAN OF ARC, 

Fifteen liundred men were wounded in 
this attack, which she was wrongfully ac- 
cused of having advised. She withdrew, 
cursed by her o^vu side, by the French, as 
well as by the English. She had not 
scrupled to give the assault on the anni- 
versary of the Nativity of Our Lady (Sep- 
tember 8 th), and the pious city of Paris was 
exceedingly scandalized thereat. 

Still more scandalized was the court of 
Charles VII. Libertines, the politic, the 
blind devotees of the letter — sworn en- 
emies of the spirit, all declared stoutly 
against the spirit, the instant it seemed to 
fail. The ai'chbishop of Reims, chancellor 
of Fi'ance, who had ever looked but coldly 
on the Pucelle, insisted, in opposition to her 
advice, on commencing a negotiation. He 
himself came to Saint-Denys to propose 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 105 

terms of truce, with, perhaps, a secret hope 
of gaining over the Duke of Burgundy, at 
the time at Paris. 

Evilly regarded and badly supported, the 
Pucelle laid siege during the winter to 
Saint-Pierre-le-Moustiers, and la Charite. 
At the siege of the first, though almost 
deserted by her men, she persevered in 
delivering the assault and carried the 
town. The siege of the second dragged 
on, languished, and a panic terror dis- 
persed the besiegers. 

CAPTUKE OF THE PrCELLE. 

Meanwhile, the English had persuaded 
the Duke of Burgundy to aid them in good 
earnest. The weaker he saw them to be, 
the stronger was his hope of retaining the 
places which he might take in Picardy. 



106 JOAN OF ARC, 

The English, who had just lost Louviers, 
placed themselves at his disposal ; and the 
duke, the richest prince in Christendom, 
no longer hesitated to embark men and 
money in a war of which he hoped to reap 
all the profit. He bribed the governor of 
Soissons to surrender that city ; and then 
laid siege to Compiegne, the governor of 
which was, likewise, obnoxious to suspi- 
cion. The citizens, however, had com- 
promised themselves too much in the cause 
of Charles VII. to allow of their town's 
being betrayed. The Pucelle threw her- 
self into it. On the very same day she 
headed a sortie, and had nearly surprised 
the besiegers ; but they quickly recovered, 
and vigorously drove back their assailants 
as far as the city bridge. The Pucelle, 
who had remained in the rear to cover the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. IQY 

retreat, was too late to enter the gates, 
either hindered by the crowd that thronged 
the bridge, or by the sudden shutting of 
the barriers. She was conspicuous by her 
dress, and was soon surrounded, seized, and 
dragged from her horse. Her captor, a 
Picard archer, — according to others, the 
bastard of Vendome, — sold her to John of 
Luxembourg. All, English and Burgundi- 
ans, saw with astonishment that this object 
of terror, this monster, this devil, was after 
all only a girl of eighteen. 

That it would end so, she knew before- 
hand ; her cruel fate was inevitable, and — 
we must say the word — necessary. It was 
necessary that she should suffer. If she had 
not gone through her last trial and purifi- 
cation, doubtful shadows would have in- 
terposed amidst the rays of glory which 



108 JOAN OF ARC, 

rest on that holy figure : she would not 
have lived in men's minds the Maid of 
Orleans. 

When speaking of raising the siege of 
Orleans, and of the coronation at Reims, 
she had said, " 'Tis for this that I was born." 
These two things accomplished, her sanc- 
tity was in peril. 

War, sanctity, two contradictory words ! 
Seemingly, sanctity is the direct opposite 
of war, it is rather love and peace. What 
young, courageous heart can mingle in bat- 
tle without participating in the sanguinary 
intoxication of the struggle and of the vic- 
tory ? . . . On setting out, she had said 
that she would not use her sword to kill 
any one. At a later moment she expatiates 
with pleasure on the sword which she wore 
at Compiegne, " excellent," as she said, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 109 

" either for thrusting or cutting." Is not 
this proof of a change ? The saint has 
become a captain. The Duke of Alencon 
deposed that she displayed a singular 
aptitude for the modern arm, the murder- 
ous arm, — artillery. The leader of indis- 
ciplinable soldiers, and incessantly hurt 
and aggrieved by their disorders, she be- 
came rude and choleric, at least when bent 
on restraining their excesses. In particular, 
she was relentless towards the dissolute 
women who accompanied the camp. One 
day she struck one of these wretched beings 
with St. Catherine's sword, with the flat of 
the sword only ; but the virginal weapon, 
unable to endure the contact, broke, and it 
could never be reunited. 

A short time before her capture, she had 
herself made prisoner a Burgundian par- 



110 JOAN OF ARC. 

tisan, Franquet d'Arras, a brigand held in 
execration throughout the whole north of 
France. The king's bailli claimed him, in 
order to hang him. At first she refused, 
thinking to exchange him ; but, at last, 
consented to give him up to justice. He 
had deserved hanging a hundred times 
over. Nevertheless, the having given up a 
prisoner, the having consented to the death 
of a human being, must have lov^ered, even 
in the eyes of her own party, her character 
for sanctity. 

Unhappy condition of such a soul fallen 
upon the realities of this world ! Each 
day she must have lost something of her- 
self. One does not suddenly become rich, 
noble, honored, the equal of lords and 
princes, with impunity. Rich dress, letters 
of nobility, royal favor — all this could not 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. HI 

fail at the last to have altered her heroic 
simplicity. She had obtained for her na- 
tive village exemption from taxes, and the 
king had bestowed on one of her brothers 
the provostship of Vaucouleurs. 

But the greatest peril for the saint was 
from her own sanctity, — ^from the respect 
and adoration of the people. At Lagny, 
she was besought to restore a child to life. 
The Count d'Armagnac wrote, begging her 
to decide which of the two popes was to be 
followed. According to the reply she is 
said to have given (falsified, perhaps), she 
promised to deliver her decision at the 
close of the war, confiding in her internal 
voices to enable her to pass judgment on 
the very head of authority. 

And yet there was no pride in her. She 
never gave herself out for a saint : often, 



112 JOAN OF ARC, 

she confessed that she knew not the future. 
The evening before a battle she was asked 
whether the king would conquer, and re- 
plied that she knew not. At Bourges, 
when the women prayed her to touch 
crosses and chaplets, she began laughing, 
and said to Dame Marguerite, at whose 
house she was staying, " Touch them your- 
self, they will be just as good." 

The singular originality of this girl was, 
as we have said, good sense in the midst of 
exaltation ; and this, as we shall see, was 
what rendered her judges implacable. The 
pedants, the reasoners who hated her as an 
inspired being, were so much the more 
cruel to her from the impossibility of de- 
spising her as a mad woman, and from the 
frequency with which her loftier reason 
silenced their arguments. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 113 

It was not difficult to foresee her fate. 
She mistrusted it herself. From the outset 
she had said — " Employ me, I shall last but 
the year, or little longer." Often address- 
ing her chaplain, brother Pasquerel, she 
repeated, " If I must die soon, tell the king, 
our lord, from me, to found chapels for the 
offering up of prayers for the salvation of 
such as have died in defense of the king- 
dom." 

Her parents asking her, when they saw 
her again at Reims, Avhether she had no 
fear of anything, her answer was, " Noth- 
ing, except treason." 

Often, on the approach of evening, if 
there happened to be any church near the 
place where the army encamped, and 
particularly, if it belonged to the Mendicant 
orders, she gladly repaired to it, and would 



114 JOAN OF ARC, 

join the children who were being prepared 
to receive the sacrament. According to an 
ancient chronicle, the very day on which 
she was fated to be made prisoner, she 
communicated in the church of St. Jacques, 
Compiegne, where, leaning sadly against a 
pillar, she said to the good people and 
children who crowded the church — "My 
good friends and my dear children, I tell 
you of a surety, there is a man who has 
sold me ; I am betrayed, and shall soon be 
given up to death. Pray to God for me, I 
beseech you ; for I shall no longer be able 
to serve my king or the noble realm of 
France." 

The probability is, that the Pucelle was 
bargained for and bought, even as Soissons 
had just been bought. At so critical a 
moment, and when their young king was 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. US 

landing on Frencli ground, the English 
would be ready to give any sum for her. 
But the Burgundians longed to have her in 
their grasp, and they succeeded ; it was to 
the interest not of the duke only and of the 
Burgundian party in general, but it was, 
besides, the direct interest of John of Ligny, 
who eagerly bought the prisoner. 

For the Pucelle to fall into the hands of 
a noble lord of the house of Luxembourg, 
of a vassal of the chivalrous Duke of 
Burgundy, of the good duke, as he was 
called, was a hard trial for the chivalry of 
the day. A prisoner of war, a girl, so 
young a girl, and, above all, a maid, what 
had she to fear amidst loyal knights ? 
Chivalry was in every one's mouth as the 
protection of afflicted dames and damsels. 
Marshal Boucicaut had just founded an 



116 JOAN OF ARC, 

order which had no other object. Besides, 
the worship of the Virgin, constantly ex- 
tending in the middle age, having become 
the dominant religion, it seemed as if 
virginity must be an inviolable safeguard. 
To explain what is to follow, we must 
point out the singular want of haimony 
which then existed between ideas and 
morals, and, however shocking the contrast, 
bring face to face with the too sublime 
ideal, with the Imitation, with the Pucelle, 
the low realities of the time ; we must (be- 
seeching pardon of the chaste girl who 
forms the subject of this narrative) fathom 
the depths of this world of covetousness 
and of concupiscence. Without seeing it 
as it existed, it would be impossible to 
understand how knights could give up her 
who seemed the living embodiment of chiv- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 117 

airy, how while the Virgin reigned, the 
Virgin should show herself, and be so 
cruelly mistaken. 

The religion of this epoch was less the 
adoration of the Virgin than of woman ; its 
chivalry was that portrayed in the Petit 
Jehan de Saintre' — but with the advantage 
of chastity, in favor of the romance, over 
the truth. 

Princes set the example. Charles VII. 
receives Agnes Sorel as a present from his 
wife's mother the old queen of Sicily ; and 
mother, wife, and mistress, he takes them 
all with him, as he marches along the Loire, 
the happiest understanding subsisting be- 
tween the three. 

The English, more serious, seek love, in 
marriage only. Gloucester marries Jacque- 
line ; among Jacqueline's ladies his regards 



118 JOAN OF ARC, 

fall on one, equally lovely and witty, and 
he marries lier too. 

But, in this respect, as in all others, 
France and England are far outstripped by 
Flanders, by the Count of Flanders, by the 
great Duke of Burgundy. The legend 
expressive of the Low Countries, is that 
of the famous countess who brought into 
the world three hundred and sixty-five 
children. The princes of the land, without 
going quite so far, seem, at the least, to 
endeavor to approach her. A count of 
Cleves has sixty-three bastards. John of 
Burgundy, bishop of Cambrai, officiates 
pontifically, with his thirty-six bastards and 
sons of bastards ministering with him at 
the altar. 

Philippe-le-Bon had only sixteen bas- 
tards, but he had no fewer than twenty- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 119 

seven wives, three lawful ones and twenty- 
four mistresses. In these sad years of 1429 
and 1430, and during the enactment of this 
tragedy of the Pucelle's, he was wholly 
absorbed in the joyous affair of his third 
marriage. This time, his wife was an In- 
fanta of Portugal, English by her mother's 
side, her mother having been Philippa of 
Lancaster ; so that the English missed their 
point in giving him the command of Paris, 
as detain him they could not ; he was in a 
hurry to quit this land of famine, and to 
return to Flanders to welcome his young 
bride. Ordinances, ceremonies, festivals, 
concluded, or interrupted and resumed con- 
sumed whole months. At Bruges, in par- 
ticular, unheard-of galas, took place rejoic- 
ings fabulous to tell of, insensate prod- 
igalities which ruined the nobility — and 



120 JOAN OF ARC, 

the burgesses eclipsed them. The seven- 
teen nations which had their warehouses at 
Bruges, displayed the riches of the universe. 
The streets were hung with the rich and 
soft carpets of Flanders. For eight days 
and eight nights the choicest wines ran in 
torrents ; a stone lion poured forth Rhenish, 
a stag, Beaune wine ; and at meal-times, a 
unicorn spouted out rosewater and malvoise. 
But the splendor of the Flemish feast 
lay in the Flemish women, in the trium- 
phant beauties of Bruges, such as Rubens 
has painted them in his Magdalen, in his 
Descent from the Cross. The Portuguese 
could not have delighted in seeing her new 
subjects : already had the Spaniard, Joan 
of Navarre, been filled with spite at the 
sight, exclaiming, against her will, " I see 
only queens here." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 121 

On his wedding day (January lOth, 
1430), Philippe-le-Bon instituted the order 
of the Golden Fleece, "won by Jason," 
taking for device the conjugal and reassur- 
ing words, '■'■Autre vi^aurayr (No other 
will I have.) 

Did the young bride believe in this ? 
It is dubious. This Jason's, or Gideon's 
fleece (as the Church soon baptized it), 
was, after all, the golden fleece, reminding 
one of the gilded waves, of the streaming 
yellow tresses which Van Dyck, Philippe- 
le-Bon's great painter, flings amorously 
round the shoulders of his saints. All saw 
in the new order the triumph of the fair, 
young, flourishing beauty of the north, 
over the somber beauties of the south. It 
seemed as the Flemish prince, to console 
the Flemish dames, addressed this device 



122 JOAN OF ARC, 

of double meaning, " Autre n''auray^''' to 
them. 

Under these forms of chivalry, awk- 
wardly imitated from romances, the history 
of Flanders at this period is nevertheless 
one fiery, joyous, brutal, bacchanalian rev- 
el. Under color of tournays, feats of 
arms, and feasts of the Round Table, there 
is one wild whirl of light and common 
gallantries, low intrigues, and interminable 
junketings. The true device of the epoch 
is that presumptuously taken by the sire 
de Ternant at the lists of Arras : — " Que 
faie de tries desirs assouvissance, et jamais 
Waui/re hieny (Let my desu-es be satisfied, 
1 wish no other good.) 

The surprising part of all this is, that 
amidst these mad festivals and this ruin- 
ous magnificence, the affairs of the Count 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 123 

of Flanders seemed to go on all the better. 
The more he gave, lost, and squandered, 
the more flowed in to him. He fattened 
and was enriched by the general ruin. In 
Holland alone he met with any obstacle ; 
but without much trouble he acquired the 
positions commanding the Somme and the 
Meuse — Namur and Peronne. Besides the 
latter town, the English placed in his 
hands Bar-sur-Seine, Auxerre, Meaux, the 
approaches to Paris, and lastly, Paris itself. 
Advantage after advantage. Fortune 
piled her favors upon him, without leaving 
him time to draw breath between her gifts. 
She threw into the power of one of his 
vassals the Pucelle, that precious gage for 
which the English would have given any 
sum. And, at this very moment, his situ- 
ation became complicated by another of 



124 JOAN OF ARC, 

Fortune's favors for the duchy of Brabant 
devolved to him ; but he could not take 
possession of it without securing the friend- 
ship of the English. 

The death of the Duke of Brabant, who 
had talked of marrying again, and of rais- 
ing up heirs to himself, happened just in 
the nick of time for the Duke of Burgundy. 
He had acquired almost all the provinces 
which bound Brabant — Flanders, Hainault, 
Holland, Namur, and Luxembourg, and 
only lacked the Central Province, that is, 
rich Lou vain, with the key to the whole, 
Brussels. Here was a strong temptation: 
so, passing over the rights of his aunt, from 
whom, however, he derived his own, he 
also sacrificed the rights of his wards, and 
his own honor and probity as a guardian, 
and seized Brabant. Therefore, to finish 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 125 

matters with Holland and Luxembourg, 
and to repulse the Liegeois who had just 
laid siege to Namur, he was necessitated to 
remain on good terms with the English ; 
in other words, to deliver up the Pucelle. 

Philippe-le--So?2/ (good) was a good man, 
according to the vulgar idea of goodness, 
tender of heart, especially to women, a 
good son, a good father, and with tears at 
will. He wept over the slain at Azincourt ; 
but his league with the English cost more 
lives than Azincourt. He shed torrents of 
tears at his father's death ; and then, to 
avenge him, torrents of blood. Sensibility 
and sensuality often go together ; but sen- 
suality and concupiscence are not the less 
cruel when aroused. Let the desired ob- 
ject draw back ; let concupiscence see her 
fly and conceal herself from its pursuit, 



126 JOAN OF ARC, 

then it turns to blind rage. . . . Woe to 
whatever opposes it ! . . , The school of 
Rubens, in its Pagan bacchanalia, rejoices 
in bringing together tigers and satyrs, 
" lust hard by hate." 

He who held the Pucelle in his hands, 
John of Ligny, the Duke of Burgundy's 
vassal, found himself precisely in the same 
situation as his suzerain ; like him, it was 
his hour of cupidity, of extreme temptation 
He belonged to the glorious house of Lux 
embourg, and to be of kin to the emperor 
Henry VII., and to King John of Bohemia, 
was an honor well worth preserving unsul 
lied; but John of Ligny was poor, the 
youngest son of a youngest son. He had 
contrived to get his aunt, the rich countess 
of Ligny and of Saint-Pol, to name him her 
sole heir, and this legacy, which lay ex- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 127 

ceedingly open to question, was about to 
be disputed by his eldest brother. In 
dread of this, John became the docile and 
trembling servant of the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, of the English, and of every one. 
The English pressed him to deliver up his 
prisoner to them ; and, indeed, they could 
easily have seized her in the tower of 
Beaulieu, in Picardy, where they had 
placed her. But, if he gave her up to 
them, he would ruin himself with the 
Duke of Burgundy, his suzerain, and the 
judge in the question of his inheritance, 
who, consequently, could ruin him by a 
single word. So he sent her, provisorily, 
to his castle of Beaurevoir, which lay with- 
in the territory of the empire. 

The English, wild with hate and humil- 
iation, urged and threatened. So great 



128 JOAN OF ARC, 

was tlieir rage against the Pucelle, that 
they burned a woman alive for speaking 
well of her. If the Pucelle herself were 
not tried, condemned, and burned as a 
sorceress — if her victories were not set 
down as due to the devil, they would re- 
main in the eyes of the people miracles, 
God's own works. The inference would 
be, that God was against the English, that 
they had been rightfully and loyally de- 
feated, and that their cause was the devil's. 
Recording to the notions of the time, there 
was no medium. A conclusion like this, 
intolerable to English pride, was infinitely 
more so to a government of bishops, like 
that of England, and to the cardinal, its 
head. 

Matters were in a desperate state when 
Winchester took them in hand. Gloucester 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 129 

being reduced to a cipher in England, and 
Bedford in France, lie found himself un- 
controlled. He had fancied that on bring- 
ing the young king to Calais (April 23d), 
all would flock to him : not an Englishman 
budged. He tried to pique their honor by 
fulminating an ordinance " against those 
who fear the enchantments of the Pucelle : " 
it had not the slightest effect. The king 
remained at Calais, like a stranded vessel. 
Winchester became eminently ridiculous. 
After the crusade for the recovery of the 
Holy Land had dwindled down in his 
hands to a crusade against Bohemia, he 
had cut down the latter to a crusade against 
Paris. This bellicose prelate, who had 
flattered himself that he should officiate as 
a conqueror in ISTotre-Dame, and crown his 
charge there, found all the roads blocked 



130 JOAN OF ARC, 

up. Holding Compiegne, the enemy barred 
tlie roate through Picardy, and holding 
Louviers, that through Normandy. Mean- 
while the war dragged slowly on, his 
money wasted away, and the crusade dis- 
solved in smoke. Apparently the Devil 
had to do with the matter ; for the car- 
dinal could only get out of the scrape by 
bringing the deceiver to his trial ; by burn- 
ing him in the person of the Pucelle. 

He felt that he must have her, must 
force her out of the hands of the Burgun- 
dians. She had been made prisoner May 
23d ; by the 26th a message is despatched 
from Kouen, in the name of the vicar of the 
Inquisition, summoning -the Duke of Bur- 
gundy and John of Ligny to deliver up 
this woman, suspected of sorcery. The • 
Inquisition had not much power in France ; 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 131 

its vicar was a poor and very timorous 
monk, a Dominican, and, undoubtedly, like 
all the other Mendicants, favorable to the 
Pucelle. But he was here, at Rouen, over- 
awed by the all-powerful cardinal, who 
held the sword to his breast ; and who had 
just appointed captain of Rouen a man of 
action, and a man devoted to himself, the 
Earl of Warwick, Henry's tutor. Warwick 
held two posts, assuredly widely different 
from one another, but both of great trust ; 
the tutelage of the king, and the care of 
the king's enemy ; the education of the 
one, the superintendence of the trial of the 
other. 

The monk's letter was a document of 
little weight, and the University was made 
to write at the same time. It was hardly 
possible that the heads of the University 



132 JOAN OF AKC, 

should lend any liearty aid to expediting a 
process instituted by the Papal Inquisition, 
at the very moment they were going to de- 
clare war on the people at Bale, on behaK 
of the episcopacy. Winchester himself, 
the head of the English episcopacy, must 
have preferred a trial by bishops, or, if he 
could, to bring bishops and inquisitors to 
act in concert together. Now he had in his 
train and among his adherents, a bishop just 
fitted for the business, a beggarded bishop, 
who lived at his table, and who assuredly 
would sentence or would swear just as was 
wanted. 

Pierre Cauchon, bishop of Beauvais, was 
not a man without merit. Born at Keims, 
near Gerson's place of birth, he was a very 
influential doctor of the University, and a 
friend of Clemengis, who asserts that he 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. I33 

was botli "good and beneficent." This 
goodness did not hinder him from being 
one of the most violent of the violent Ca- 
bochien party ; and as such he was driven 
from Paris in 1413. He reentered the 
capital Avith the Duke of Burgundy, became 
Bishop of Beauvais, and, under the English 
rule, was elected by the University conser- 
vator of its privileges. But the invasion 
of northern France by Charles VII., in 
1429, was fatal to Cauchon, who sought to 
keep Beauvais in the English interests, and 
was thrust out by the citizens. He did not 
enjoy himself at Paris with the dull Bed- 
ford, who had no means of rewarding zeal ; 
and repaired to the fount of wealth and 
power in England, to Cardinal Winchester. 
He became English, he spoke English. 
Winchester perceived the use to which 



134 JOAN OF ARC, 

suet, a man miglit be put, and attached him 
to himself by doing for him even more 
than he could have hoped for. The arch- 
bishop of E-ouen having been translated 
elsewhere, he recommended him to the pope 
to fill that great see. But neither the pope 
nor the chapter would have anything to do 
with Cauchon ; and Rouen, at war at the 
time with the University of Paris, could 
not well receive as its archbishop a member 
of that University. Here was a complete 
stop, and Cauchon stood with gaping 
mouth in sight of the magnificent prey, 
ever in hopes that all obstacles would dis- 
appear before the invincible cardinal, full 
of devotion to him, and having no other 
•^od. 

It was exceedingly opportune that the 
Pucelle should have been taken close to 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 135 

the limits of Cauchon's diocese; not, it is 
true, within the diocese itself ; but there was 
a hope of making it believed to be so. So 
Cauchon wrote, as judge ordinary, to the 
king of England, to claim the right of try- 
ing her; and, on the 12th of June, the 
University received the king's letters to 
the effect that the bishop and the inquisi- 
tor were to proceed to try her with concur- 
rent powers. Though the proceedings of 
the Inquisition were not the same as those 
of the ordinary tribunals of the Church, no 
objection was raised. The two jurisdictions 
choosing thus to connive at each other, one 
difficulty alone remained ; the accused was 
still in the hands of the Burgundians. 

The University put herself forward, and 
wrote anew to the Duke of Burgundy and 
John of Ligny. Couchon, in his zeal un- 



186 JOAN OF ARC, 

dertook to be the agent of tiie Englisla, 
their courier, to carry the letter himself, 
and deliver it to the two dukes ; at the 
same time, as bishop, he handed them a 
summons, calling upon them to deliver up 
to him a prisoner over whom he claimed 
jurisdiction. In the course of this strange 
document of his, he quits the character of 
judge for that of negotiator, and makes 
offers of money, stating that although this 
woman cannot be considered a prisoner of 
war, the king of England is ready to settle 
a pension of two or three hundred livres 
on the Bastard of Vendome, and to give 
the sum of six thousand livres to those who 
have her in their keeping : then, towards 
the close of this missive of his, he raises 
his offer to ten thousand, but pointing out 
emphatically the magnitude of the offer, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 137 

" As much," lie says, " as the French are 
accustomed to give for a king or a prince." 
The English did not rely so implicitly 
on the steps taken by the University, and 
on Cauchon's negotiations, as to neglect the 
more energetic means. On the same day 
that the latter presented his summons, or 
the day after, the council in England placed 
an embargo on all traffic with the markets 
of the Low Countries, and, above all, with 
Antwerp (July 19), prohibiting the English 
merchants from purchasing linens there, 
and the other goods for which they were 
in the habit of exchanging their wool. 
This was inflicting on the Duke of Bur- 
gundy, Count of Flanders, a blow in the 
most sensible part through the medium of 
the great Flemish manufactures, linens and 
cloth : the English discontinued purchasing 



138 JOAN OF ARC, 

the one, and supplying the material for the 
other. 

While the English were thus strenuously 
urging on the destruction of the Pucelle, 
did Charles VII. take any steps to save 
her ? None, it appears : yet he had prisoners 
in his hands, and could have protected her 
by threatening reprisals. A short time 
before, he had set negotiations on foot 
through the medium of his chancellor, the 
Archbishop of Heims ; but neither he nor 
the other politicians of the council had 
ever regarded the Pucelle with much favor. 
The Anjou-Lorraine party, with the old 
queen of Sicily, who had taken her by the 
hand from the first, could not, at this precise 
juncture, interfere on her behalf with the 
Duke of Burgundy. The Duke of Lorraine 
was on his death-bed, the succession to the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. I39 

duchy disputed before tlie breath was out 
of his body, and Philippe-le-Bon was giving 
his support to a rival of Ee'ne' of Anjou's, 
— son-in-law and heir to the Duke of Lor- 
raine. 

Thus, on every side, interest and cov- 
etousness declared against the Pucelle, or 
produced indifference to her. The good 
Charles VIL did nothing for her, the good 
Duke Philippe delivered her up. The 
house of Anjou coveted Lorraine, the Duke 
of Burgundy coveted Brabant ; and, most 
of all, he desiderated the keeping open the 
trade between Flanders and England. The 
little had their interests to attend to as 
well. John of Ligny looked to inherit 
Saint-Pol, and Cauchon was grasping at 
the archbishopric of Pouen. 

In vain did John of Ligny's wife throw 



140 JOAN OF ARC, 

herself at his feet, in vain did she suppli- 
cate him not to dishonor himself. He was 
no longer a free man, already had he 
touched English gold ; though he gave her 
up, not, it is true, directly to the English, 
but to the Duke of Burgundy. This house 
of Ligny and of Saint-Pol, with its recollec- 
tions of greatness and its unbridled aspira- 
tions, was fated to pursue fortune to the 
end — to the Greve. The surrenderer of 
the Pucelle seems to have felt all his misery ; 
he had painted on his arms a camel suc- 
cumbing under its burden, with the sad 
device, unknown to men of heart, " Nul 
n'est tenu a I'impossible" (No one is held 
to impossibilities). 

What was the prisoner doing the while ? 
Her body was at Beaurevoir, her soul at 
Compiegne ; she was fighting, soul and 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 141 

spirit, for tte king who had deserted her. 
Without her, she felt that the faithful city 
of Compiegne would fall, and, with it, the 
royal cause throughout the North. She 
had previously tried to effect her escape 
from the towers of Beaulieu : and at Beau- 
revoir she was still more strongly tempted 
to fly: she knew that the English de- 
manded that she should be given up to 
thern, and dreaded falling into their hands. 
She consulted her saints, and could obtain 
no other answer than that it behooved to 
be patient, " that her delivery would not 
be until she had seen the king of the Eng 
lish." " But," she said within herself, 
" can it be that God will suffer these poor 
people of Compiegne to die, who have 
been, and who are, so loyal to their lord " ? 
Presented under this form of lively com- 



142 JOAN OF ARC, 

passion, tlie temptation prevailed. For the 
first time she turned a deaf ear to her 
saints : she threw herself from the tower, 
and fell at its foot half-dead. Borne in 
again, and nursed by the ladies of Ligny, 
she longed for death, and persisted in re- 
maining two days without eating. 

Delivered up to the Duke of Burgundy, 
she was taken to Arras, and then to the 
donjon-keep of Crotoy, which has long 
been covered by the sands of the Somme. 
From this place of confinement she looked 
out upon the sea, and could sometimes de- 
scry the English downs — that hostile land 
into which she had hoped to carry war for 
the deliverance of the Duke of Orleans. 
Mass was daily performed here by a priest 
who was also a prisoner, and Jeanne prayed 
ardently ; she asked, and it was given unto 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 143 

her. Though confined in prison, she dis- 
played her power all the same ; as long as 
she lived, her prayers broke through the 
walls, and scattered the enemy. 

On the very day that she had predicted, 
forewarned by the archangel, the siege of 
Compiegne was raised — that is on the 1st 
of November. The Duke of Burgundy 
had advanced as far as Noyon, as if to meet 
and experience the insulting reverse per- 
sonally. ' He sustained another defeat 
shortly afterwards at Germigny (November 
20). Saintrailles then offered him battle 
at Peronne, which he declined. 

These humiliations undoubtedly con- 
firmed the duke in his alliance with the 
English, and determined him to deliver up 
the Pucelle to them. But the mere threat 
of interrupting all commercial relations 



144 JOAN OF ARC, 

would have been enough. Chivalrous as 
he believed himself to be, and the restorer 
of chivalry, the Count of Flanders was at 
bottom the servant of the manufacturers 
and the merchants. The manufacturing 
cities and the flax-spinning districts would 
not have allowed commerce to be long in- 
terrupted, or their works brought to a 
stand-still, but would have burst forth into 
insurrection. 

At the very moment the English had got 
possession of the Pucelle, and were free to 
proceed to her trial, their affairs were going 
on very badly. Far from retaking Lou- 
viers, they Lad lost Chateau-galliard. La 
Hire took it by escalade, and finding Bar- 
bazan a prisoner there, set that formidable 
captain at liberty. The towns voluntarily 
went over to Charles VII., the inhabitants 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 145 

expelling the English : those of Melun, 
close as the town is to Paris, thrust the 
garrison out of the gates. 

To put on the drag, if it were possible, 
while the affairs of England were thus 
going rapidly down-hill, some great and 
powerful engine was necessary, and Win- 
chester had one at hand — the trial and the 
coronation. These two things were to be 
brought into play together, or rather, they 
were one and the same thing. To dishonor 
Charles VII., to prove that he had been led 
to be crowned by a witch, was bestowing 
so much additional sanctity on the corona- 
tion of Henry VI. ; if the one were avow- 
edly the anointed of the Devil, the other 
must be recognized as the anointed of God. 

Henry made his entry into Paris on the 
2d of December. On the 21st of the pre- 



146 JOAN OF ARC. 

ceding month, the University had been 
made to write to Cauchon, complaining of 
his delays, and beseeching the king to order 
the trial to be begun. Cauchon was in no 
haste ; perhaps, thinking it hard to begin 
the work before the wage was assured, and 
it was not till a month afterwards that he 
procured from the chapter of Rouen author- 
ity to proceed in that diocese. On the in- 
stant (January 3, 1431), Winchester issued 
an ordinance, in which the king was made 
to say, " that on the requisition of the 
Bishop of Beauvais, and exhorted thereto 
by his dear daughter, the University of 
Paris, he commanded her keepers to con- 
duct the accused to the bishop." The word 
was chosen to show that the prisoner was 
not given up to the ecclesiastical judge but 
only lent, " to be taken back again if not 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 14Y 

convicted." The Englisli ran no risk, she 
could not escape death ; if fire failed, the 
sword remained. 

Cauchon opened the proceedings at 
Rouen, on the 9th of January, 1431. He 
seated the vicar of the Inquisition near 
himself, and began by holding a sort of 
consultation with eight doctors, licentiates 
or masters of arts of Rouen, and by laying 
before them the inquiries which he had 
instituted touching the Pucelle, but which, 
having been conducted by her enemies, 
appeared insufficient to these legists of 
Kouen. In fact, they were so utterly in- 
sufficient, that the prosecution, which, on 
these worthless data, was about to have 
been commenced against her on the charge 
of magic^ was instituted on the charge of 
heresy. 



148 JOAN OF ARC, 

Witli the ^iew of conciliating tliese re- 
calcitrating Normans, and lessening their 
superstitious reverence for the form of pro- 
cedure, Cauchon nominated one of their 
number, Jean de la Fontaine, examining 
counselor {conseiller exa/minateur'). But 
he reserved the most active part, that of 
promoter of the prosecution {^romoteur du 
^roces)^ for a certain Estivet, one of his 
Beauvais canons by whom he was accom- 
panied. He managed to consume a month 
in these preparations ; but the young king 
having been at length taken back to Lon- 
don (February 9), Winchester, tranquil 
on this head, applied himself earnestly 
to the business of the trial, and would 
trust no one to superintend it. He 
thought, and justly, that the master's eye 
is the best, and took up his residence at 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 149 

Rouen in order to watch Cauchon at 
work. 

His first step was to make sure of the 
monk who represented the Inquisition. 
Cauchon, having assembled his assessors, 
Norman priests and doctors of Paris, in the 
house of a canon, sent for the Dominican, 
and called upon him to act as his coad- 
jutor in the proceedings. The shaveling 
timidly replied, that " if his powers were 
judged sufficient, he would act as his duty 
required." The bishop did not fail to 
declare that his powers were amply 
sufficient ; on which the monk further 
objected, "that he was anxious not to 
act as yet, both from scruples of con- 
science and for legality of the trial," and 
begged the bishop to substitute some 
one in his place, until he should ascer- 



150 JOAN OF ARC, 

tain tliat his powers were really suffi- 
cient. 

His objections were useless ; he was not 
allowed so to escape, and had to sit in 
judgment, whether he would or not. 
There was another motive, besides fear, 
which undoubtedly assisted in keeping 
him to his post — Winchester assigned him 
twenty gold sous for his pains. Perhaps, 
the Mendicant monk had never seen such 
a quantity of gold in his life. 

TRIAL OF THE PUCELLE. 

On February 21, the Pucelle was brought 
before her judges. The Bishop of Beau- 
vais admonished her " with mildness and 
charity," praying her to answer truly to 
whatever she should be asked, without 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 151 

evasion or subterfuge, both to shorten her 
trial and ease her conscience. Ansvjer. 
" I do not know what you mean to ques- 
tion me about, you might ask me things 
which I would not tell you." She con- 
sented to swear to speak the truth upon 
all matters, except those which related to 
her visions ; " But, with respect to these," 
she said, " you shall cut off my head first." 
Nevertheless, she was induced to swear 
that she would answer all questions " on 
points affecting faith." 

She was again urged on the following 
day, the 2 2d, and again on the 24th, but 
held firm. " It is a common remark even 
in children's mouths," was her observation, 
"that people are often hung for telling the 
truth.'''' At last, worn out, and for quiet- 
ness' sake, she consented to swear " to tell 



152 JOAN OF ARC, 

what she knew u]^on Iter trials but not all 
she knew." 

Interrogated as to her age, name, and 
surname, she said that she was about nine- 
teen years old. " In the place where I was 
born,' they called me Jehanette, and in 
France Jehanne. . . ." But, with regard 
to her surname (the Pticelle^ the maid), it 
seems, that through some caprice of fem- 
inine modesty she could not bring herself 
to utter it, and that she eluded the direct 
answer by a chaste falsehood — " As to sur- 
name, I know nothing of it." 

She complained of the fetters on her 
limbs ; and the bishop told her that as she 
had made several attempts to escape, they 



^Domremy in Champagne, on the frontiers of 
Burgundy, would be distinguished in Joan's time 
from France Proper. — Translator. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 153 

had been obliged to put tliem on. " It is 
true," she said, " I have done so, and it is 
allowable for any prisoner. If I escaped, 
I could not be reproached with having bro- 
ken my word, for I had given no promise." 

She was ordered to repeat the Pater and 
the Ave^ perhaps in the superstitious idea 
that if she were vowed to the devil she 
durst not — " I will willingly repeat them 
if my lord of Beauvais will hear me con- 
fess : " adroit and touching demand ; by 
thus reposing her confidence in her judge, 
her enemy, she would have made him both 
her spiritual father and the mtness of her 
innocence. 

Cauchon declined the request ; but I can 
well believe that he was moved by it. He 
broke up the sitting for that day, and on 
the day following did not continue the 



154: JOAN OF ARC, 

interrogatory himself, but deputed the office 
to one of his assessors. 

At the fourth sitting she displayed un- 
wonted animation. She did not conceal 
her having heard her voices : " They awak- 
ened me," she said, " I clasped my hands 
in prayer, and besought them to give me 
counsel ; they said to me, ' Ask of our 
Lord.' " — " And what more did they say ? " 
— " To answer you boldly." 

"... I cannot tell all ; I am much more 
fearful of saying anything which may dis- 
please them, than I am of answering you. 
. , . For to-day, I beg you to question me 
no further." 

The bishop, perceiving her emotion, per- 
sisted: "But, Jehanne, Grod is offended, 
then, if one tells true things ? "— " My 
voices have told me certain things, not for 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 155 

you, but for the king." Then she added, 
with fervor, " Ah ! if he knew them, he 
would eat his dinner with greater rel- 
ish. . . . Would that he did know them, 
and would drink no wine from this to 
Easter." 

She gave utterance to some sublime 
things, while prattling in this simple strain : 
" I come from God, I have naught to do 
here: dismiss me to God, from whom I 
come. . . ." 

" You say that you are my judge ; think 
well what you are about, for of a truth I 
am sent of God, and you are putting your- 
self in great danger." 

There can be no doubt such language 
irritated the judges, and they put to her 
an insidious and base question, a question 
which it is a crime to put to any man 



156 JOAN OF ARC, 

alive : " Jehanne, do you believe yourself 
to be in a state of grace ? " 

They thought they had bound her with 
an indissoluble knot. To say no, was to 
confess herself unworthy of having been 
God's chosen instrument ; but, on the other 
hand, how say yes ? Which of us, frail 
beings as we are, is sure here below of 
being truly in Grod's grace ? Not one, 
except the proud, • presumptuous man, 
who, of all, is precisely the furthest from 
it. 

She cut the knot, with heroic and Chris- 
tian simplicity : — 

" If I am not, may God be pleased to 
receive me into it: if I am, may God be 
pleased to keep me in it." 

The Pharisees were struck speechless. 

But, with all her heroism, she was never- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 157 

theless a woman. . . . After giving utter- 
ance to this sublime sentiment, she sank 
from the high- wrought mood, and relapsed 
into the softness of her sex, doubting of her 
state, as is natural to a Christian soul, in- 
terrogating herself, and trying to gain con- 
fidence : " Ah ! if I knew that I were not 
in God's grace, I should be the most 
wretched being in the world. . . . But, if I 
were in a state of sin, no doubt the voice 
would not come. . . . Would that every 
one could hear it like myself. . . ." 

These words gave a hold to her judges. 
After a long pause, they returned to the 
charge with redoubled hate, and pressed 
upon her question after question designed 
to ruin her. " Had not the voices told her 
to liate the Burgundians ?"..." Did she 
not go when a child to the Fairies' tree ? " 



158 JOAN OF ARC, 

etc. . . . They now louged to burn her as 
a witch. 

At the fifth sitting she was attacked on 
delicate and dangerous ground, namely, 
with regard to the appearances she had 
seen. The bishop, become all of a sudden 
compassionate and honied, addressed her 
with — " Jehanne, how have you been since 
Saturda}^ ? " — " You see," said the poor 
prisoner, loaded with chains ; " as well as 
I might." 

" Jehanne, do you fast every day this 
Lent ? " — " Is the question a necessary 
one ? "— " Yes, truly."—" Well then, yes, 
I have always fasted." 

She was then pressed on the subject of 
her visions, and with regard to a sign 
shown the dauphin, and concerning St. 
Catherine and St. Michael. Among other 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 159 

insidious and indelicate questions, she was 
asked whether, when St. Michael appeared 
to her, he loas naked ,^ ... To this shame- 
ful question she replied, without under- 
standing its drift, and with heavenly pur- 
ity, " Do you think, then, that our Lord 
has not wherewith to clothe him ? " 

On March 3, other out-of-the-way ques- 
tions were put to her, in order to entrap 
her into confessing some diabolical agency, 
some evil correspondence with the devil. 
" Has this Saint Michael of yours, have 
these holy women, a body and limbs ? 
Are you sure the figures you see are those 
of angels ? " — " Yes, I believe so, as firmly 
as I believe in God." This answer was 
carefully noted down. 

They then turn to the subject of her 
wearing male attire, and of her standard. 



160 JOAN OF ARC. 

" Did not the soldiery make standards in 
imitation of yours ? Did tliey not replace 
them with others ? " — " Yes, when the 
lance (staff) happened to break." — " Did 
you not say that those standards would 
bring them luck ? " — " No ; I only said, 
' Fall boldly upon the English,' and I fell 
upon them myself." 

" But why was this standard borne at 
the coronation, in the church of Reims, 
rather than those of the other captains ? . . ." 
" It had seen all the danger, and it was 
only fair that it should share the honor." 

" What was the impression of the people 
who kissed your feet, hands, and gar- 
ments ? " — " The poor came to me of their 
own free-will, because I never did them 
any harm, and assisted and protected them 
as far as was in my power." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 161 

It was impossible for heart of man not 
to be touched with such answers. Cauchon 
thought it prudent to proceed hencefor- 
ward with only a few assessors on whom 
he could rely, and quite quietly. We find 
the number of assessors varying at each sit- 
ting from the very beginning of the trial : 
some leave, and their places are taken by 
others. The place of trial is similarly 
changed. The accused, who at first is in- 
terrogated in the hall of the castle of 
Rouen, is now questioned in prison. " In 
order not to fatigue the rest," Cauchon took 
there only two assessors and two witnesses, 
(from the 10th to the 17th of March). 
He was, perhaps, emboldened thus to pro- 
ceed with shut doors, from being sure of 
the support of the Inquisition ; the vicar 
having at length received from the Inquis- 



162 JOAN OF ARC, 

itor-General of France full powers to pre- 
side at the trial along witli the bishop 
(March 12). 

In these fresh examinations, she is 
pressed only on a few points indicated be- 
forehand by Cauchon. 

" Did the voices command her to make 
that sally out of Compiegne in which she 
was taken ? " To this she does not give a 
direct reply : " The saints had told me that 
I should be taken before midsummer ; that 
it behooved so to be, that I must not be 
astonished, but suffer all cheerfully, and 
Grod would aid me. . . . Since it has so 
pleased God, it is for the best that I should 
have been taken." 

" Do you think you did well in setting 
out without the leave of your father and 
mother ? Ought we not to honor our par- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 163 

ents ? " — " They have forgiven me." — " And 
did you think you were not sinning in do- 
ing so ? " — " It was by God's command ; 
and if I had had a hundred fathers and 
mothers I should have set out." 

" Did not the voices call you daughter of 
God, daughter of the Church, the maid of 
the great heart ? " — " Before the siege of 
Orleans was raised, and since then, the 
voices have called me, and they call me 
every day, ' Jehanne the Pucelle, daughter 
of God.'" 

" Was it right to attack Paris, the day of 
the Nativity of Our Lady ? "— " It is fitting 
to keep the festivals of Our Lady ; and it 
would be so, I truly think, to keep them 
every day." 

" Why did you leap from the tower of 
Beaurevoir ? " (The drift of this question 



164 JOAN OF ARC, 

was to induce her to say tliat she had 
wished to kill herself.) — " I heard that the 
poor people of Compiegne would all be 
slain, down to children seven years of age, 
and I knew, too, that I was sold to the 
English; I would rather have died than 
fall into the hands of the English." 

" Do St. Catherine and St. Margaret hate 
the English ? " — " They love what our Lord 
loves, and hate what He hates." — " Does 
God hate the English ? "— " Of the love or 
hate God may bear the English, and what 
He does with their souls, I know nothing ; 
but I know that they will be put forth out 
of France, with the exception of such as 
shall perish in it." 

" Is it not a mortal sin to hold a man to 
ransom, and then put him to death ? " — " I 
have not done that." — " Was not Franquet 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 165 

d' Arras put to death ? " — " I consented to 
it, having been unable to exchange him for 
one of my men ; he owned to being a brig- 
and and a traitor. His trial lasted a fort- 
night, before the bailli of Senlis." — "Did 
you not give money to the man who took 
hiin ? " — " I am not treasurer of France, to 
give money." 

" Do you think that your king did well 
in killing, or causing to be killed, my lord 
of Burgundy ? " — " It was a great pity for 
the realm of France ; but, whatever might 
have been between them, Grod sent me to 
the aid of the King of France." 

" Jehanne, has it been revealed to you 
whether you will escape ? " — " That does 
not bear upon your trial. Do you want 
me to depone against myself ? " — " Have 
the voices said nothing to you about it ? " 



166 JOAN OF ARC, 

— " That does not concern your trial ; I 
put myself in our Lord's hands, who will 
do as it pleaseth Him." . . . And, after a 
pause, " By my troth, I know neither the 
hour nor the day. God's will be done." — 
" Have not your voices told you anything 
about the result, generally ? " — " Well, 
then, yes ; they have told me that I shall 
be delivered, and have bade me be of good 
cheer and courage. . . ." 

Another day she added : " The saints 
tell me that I shall be victoriously delivered, 
and they said to me besides, ' Take all in 
good part ; care not for thy martyrdom ; 
thou shalt at the last enter the kingdom of 
Paradise.' " — " And since they have told 
you so, do you feel sure of being saved, and 
of not going to hell ? " — " Yes, I believe 
what they have told me as firmly as if 1 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 167 

were already saved." — " This assurance is 
a very weighty one." — " Yes, it is a great 
treasure to me." — " And so, you believe you 
can no longer commit a mortal sin ? " — " I 
know nothing of that ; I rely altogether on 
our Lord." 

At last, the judges had made out the 
true ground on which to bring the accusa- 
tion ; at last, they had found a spot on 
which to lay stronghold. There was not a 
chance of getting this chaste and holy girl 
to be taken for a witch, for a familiar of 
the devil's ; but, in her very sanctity, as is 
invariably the case with all mystics, there 
was a side left open to attack : the secret 
voice considered equal, or preferred to, the 
instruction of the Church, the prescriptions 
of authority — inspiration, but free and in- 
dependent inspiration — revelation, but a 



168 JOAN OF ARC, 

personal revelation — submission to God ; 
what God ? the God within. 

These preliminary examinations were 
concluded by a formal demand, whether 
she would submit her actions and opinions 
to the judgment of the Church ; to which 
she replied, " I love the Church, and would 
support it to the best of my power. As to 
the good works which I have wrought, I 
must refer them to the King of Heaven, who 
sent me." 

The question being repeated, she gave 
no other answer, but added, " Our Lord 
and the Church, it is all one." 

She was then told, that there was a 
distinction ; that there was the Church 
trimn^phant^ God, the saints, and those who 
had been admitted to salvation ; and the 
Church militant^ or, in other words^ the 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 169 

pope, tne cardinals, the clergy, and all good 
Christians — the which Church " properly 
assembled," cannot err, and is guided by 
the Holy Ghost. " Will you not then sub- 
mit yourself to the Church militant ? " — ■ 
" I am come to the King of France from 
God, from the Virgin Mary, the saints, and 
the Church victorious there above ; to that 
Church I submit myself, my works, all that 
I have done or have to do." — " And to the 
Church militant f " — " I will give no other 
answer." 

According to one of the assessors she 
said that, on certain points, she trusted to 
neither bishop, pope nor any one ; but held 
her belief of God alone. 

The question on which the trial was to 
turn was thus laid down in all its simplicity 
and grandeur, and the true debate com- 



170 JOAN OF ARC, 

menced : on the one hand, the visible 
Church and authority, on the other, inspi- 
ration attesting the invisible Church ; . . . 
invisible to vulgar eyes, but clearly seen 
by the pious girl, who was forever con- 
templating it, forever hearing it within 
herself, forever carrying in her heart these 
saints and angels. . . . There was her 
Church, there God shone in His bright- 
ness; everywhere else, how shadowy He 
was ! . . . 

Such being the case at issue, the accused 
was doomed to irremediable destruction. 
She could not give way; she could not, 
save falsely, disavow, deny what she saw 
and heard so distinctly. On the other 
hand, could authority remain authority if 
it abdicated its jurisdiction ; if it did not 
punish ? The Church militant is an armed 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 171 

Churcli, armed with a two-edged sword; 
against whom ? Apparently, against the 
refractory. 

Terrible was this Church in the person 
of the reasoners, the scholastics, the enemies 
of inspiration ; terrible and implacable, if 
represented by the bishop of Beauvais. 
But were there, then, no judges superior 
to this bishop ? How could the episcopal 
party, the party of the University, fail, in 
this peculiar case, to recognize as supreme 
judge its Council of Bale, which was on 
the eve of being opened ? On the other 
hand, the papal Inquisition, and the Domin- 
ican who was its vicar, would undoubtedly 
be far from disputing the superiority of 
the pope's jurisdiction to its own, which 
emanated from it. 

A legist of Rouen, that very Jean de la 



1T2 JOAN OF ARC, 

Fontaine who was Cauclion's friend and 
the enemy of the Pucelle, could not feel his 
conscience at ase in leaving an accused 
girl, without counsel, ignorant that there 
were judges of appeal, on whom she could 
call without any sacrifice of the ground on 
which she took up her defense. Two 
monks likewise thought that a reservation 
should be made in favor of the supreme 
right of the pope. However irregular it 
might be for assessors to visit and counsel 
the accused, apart from their coadjutors, 
these three worthy men, who saw Cauchon 
violate every legal form for the triumph of 
iniquity, did not hesitate to violate all 
forms themselves for justice's sake, intrep- 
idly repaired to the prison, forced their 
way in, and advised her to appeal. The 
next day^ she appealed to the pope and to 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 173 

tlie council. Cauchon, in Jais rage, sent for 
the guards and inquired who had visited 
the Pucelle. The legist and the two monks 
were in great danger of death. From that 
day they disappear from among the assess- 
ors, and with them the last semblance of 
justice disappears from the trial. 

Cauchon, at first, had hoped to have on 
his side the authority of the lawyers, which 
carried great weight at Rouen. But he 
had soon found out that he must do with- 
out them. When he showed the minutes 
of the opening proceedings of the trial to 
one of these grave legists, Master Jehan 
Lohier, the latter plainly told him that the 
trial amounted to nothing ; that it was all 
informal ; that the assessors were not free 
to judge ; that the proceedings were carried 
on with closed doors ; that the accused, a 



174 JOAN OF ARC, 

simple countiy girl, was not capable of 
answering on such grave subjects and to 
learned doctors; and, finally, the lawyer 
had the boldness to say to the churchman, 
" The proceedings are, in point of fact, in- 
stituted to impugn the honor of the prince, 
whose side this girl espouses; you shall 
cite him to appear as well, and assign him 
an advocate." This intrepid gravity, which 
recalls Papinian's bearing towards Cara- 
calla, would have cost Lohier dear; but 
the Norman Papinian did not, like the 
other, calmly wait the death-stroke on his 
curule chair; he set off at once for Rome, 
where the pope eagerly attached such a 
man to himself, and appointed him one of 
the judges of the Holy See : he died, dean 
of the Rota. 

Apparently, Cauchon ought to have been 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 175 

better supported by the theologians. 
After the first examinations, armed with 
the answers, which she had given against 
herself, he shut himself up with his inti- 
mates, and availing himself, especially, of 
the pen of an able member of the Univer- 
sity of Paris, he drew from these answers 
a few counts, on which the opinion of the 
leading doctors and of the ecclesiastical 
bodies was to be taken. This was the 
detestable custom, but in reality (whatever 
has been said to the contrary) the common 
and regular way of proceeding in inquisi- 
torial trials. These propositions, extracted 
from the answers given by the Pucelle, and 
drawn up in general terms, bore a false 
show of impartiality ; although, in point of 
fact, they were a caricature of those an- 
swers, and the doctors consulted could not 



176 JOAN OF ARC, 

fail to pass an opinion upon them, in ac- 
cordance witli the hostile intention of their 
iniquitous framers. 

But, however the counts might be framed 
— however great the terror which hung 
over the doctors consulted, they were far 
from being unanimous in their judgments. 
Among these doctors, the true theologians, 
the sincere believers, those who had pre- 
served the firm faith of the middle age, 
could not easily reject this tale of celestial 
appearances, of visions ; for then they 
might have doubted all the marvels of the 
lives of the saints, and discussed all their 
legends. The venerable Bishop of Av- 
ranches replied, on being consulted, that, 
according to the teaching of St. Thomas, 
there was nothing impossible in what this 
girl affirmed, nothing to be lightly rejected* 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 1Y7 

The Bishop of Lisieux, while ackD owl- 
edging that Jeanne's revelations might be 
the work of the devil, humanely added, 
that they might also be simple lies^ and that 
, if she did not submit herself to the Church, 
she must be adjudged schismatic, and be 
vehemently suspected in regard to faith. 

Many legists answered like true Nor- 
mans, by finding her guilty and most guilty, 
except she acted hy GoWs command. One 
bachelor at law went further than this ; 
while condemning her, he demanded, in 
consideration of the weakness of her sex, 
tliat the tivelve propositions should he read 
over to her (he suspected, and with reason, 
that they had not been communicated to 
her), and that they should then be laid 
before the pope — this would have been 
adjourning the matter indefinitely. 



1Y8' JOAN OF ARC, 

The assessors, assembled in the chapel of 
the archbishopric, had decided against her 
on the showing of these propositions. The 
chapter of Rouen, likewise consulted, was 
in no haste to come to a decision, and to 
give the victory to the man it detested 
and trembled at having for its archbishop ; 
but chose to wait for the reply from the 
University of Paris, which had been applied 
to on the subject. There could be no doubt 
what this reply would be ; the Gallican 
party, that is, the University and scholastic 
party, could not be favorable to the Pucelle ; 
an individual of this party, the Bishop of 
Coutances, went beyond all others in the 
harshness and singularity of his answer. 
He wrote to the Bishop of Beauvais, that 
he considered the accused to be wholly the 
devil's, " because she was without the two 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 179 

qualities required by St. Gregory, — virtue 
and humanity," and that her assertions 
were so heretical, that though she should 
revoke them, she must nevertheless be 
held in strict keeping. 

It was a strange spectacle to see these 
theologians, these doctors, laboring with all 
their might to ruin the very faith which 
was the foundation of their doctrine, and 
which constituted the religious principle of 
the middle age in general, — belief in reve- 
lations ; in the intervention of supernatural 
beings. . . . They might have their doubts 
as to the intervention of angels ; but their 
belief in the devil's agencies was implicit. 

And was not the important question 
whether internal revelations ought to be 
hushed, and to disavow themselves at the 
Church's bidding, was not this question, so 



1$0 JOAN OF ARC, 

loudly debated in tlie outer world, silently- 
discussed in the inner world, in the soul of 
her who affirmed and who believed in their 
existence the most firmly of all ? Was not 
this battle of faith fought in the very 
sanctuary of faith ? fought in this loyal 
and simple heart ? . . . I have reason to 
believe so. 

At one time she expressed her readiness 
to submit herself to the pope, and asked to 
be sent to him. At another she drew a 
distinction, maintaining that as regarded 
faith she acknowledged the authority of 
the pope, the bishops, and the Church, but, 
as regarded what she had done^ she could 
own no other judge than Grod. Sometimes, 
making no distinction, and offering no ex- 
planation, she appealed " to her King, to 
the judge of heaven and of earth." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 181 

Whatever care has been taken to throw 
these things into the shade, and to conceal 
this, the human side, in a being who has 
been fondly painted as all divine, her 
fluctuations are visible ; and it is wrong to 
charge her judges with having misled her 
so as to make her prevaricate on those ques- 
tions. " She was very subtle," says one of 
the witnesses, and truly ; " of a woman's 
subtlety." I incline to attribute to these 
internal struggles the sickness which at- 
tacked her, and which brought her to the 
point of death ; nor did she recover, as 
she herself informs us, until the period 
that the angel Michael, the angel of battles, 
ceased to support her, and gave place to 
Gabriel, the angel of grace and of divine 
love. 

She fell sick in Passion week. Her 



182 JOAN OF ARC, 

temptation began, no doubt, on Palm Sun- 
day.^ A country girl, born on the skirts 
of a forest, and having ever lived in the 
open air of heaven, she was compelled to 
pass this fine Palm Sunday in the depths 
of a dungeon. The grand siiccor which the 
Church invokes ^ came not for her ; the 
dooTB did not open? 

They were opened on the Tuesday ; but 

^ " I know not why," says a great spiritual 
teacher, ' ' God chooses the most solemn festivals to 
try and to purify his elect. . . . It is above only, 
in the festival of heaven, that we shall be delivered 
from all our troubles. " — Saint-Cyran, in the Me- 
moires de Lancelot, i. 6. 

2 The office for prime on this day runs: " Deus, 
in adjutorium meum intende. ..." (Come, O 
God, to my aid.) 

^ Every one knows that the service for this festi- 
val is one of those in which the beautiful dramatic 
forms of the middle age have been preserved. The 
procession finds the door of the church shut, the 
minister knocks : " Attollite portas. ..." And 
the door is opened to the Lord. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 183 

it was to lead the accused to tlie great hall 
of the castle before her judges. They read 
to her the articles which had been founded 
on her answers, and the bishop previously 
represented to her, "that these doctors 
were all churchmen, clerks, and well-read 
in law, divine and human ; that they were 
all tender and pitiful, and desired to pro- 
ceed mildly, seeking neither vengeance 
nor corporal punishment^ but solely wishing 
to enlighten her, and put her in the way of 
truth and of salvation; and that, as she 
was not sufficiently informed in such high 
matters, the bishop and the inquisitor of- 
fered her the choice of one or more of the 
assessors to act as her counsel." The 
accused, in presence of this assembly, in 
which she did not descry a single friendly 
face, mildly answered, " For what you ad- 



X84 JOAN OF ARC, 

monisli me as to my good, and concerning 
our faitB, I thank you ; as to tlie counsel 
you offer me, I have no intention to forsake 
the counsel of our Lord." 

The first article touched the capital point, 
submission. She replied as before^ " Well 
do I believe that our Holy Father, the 
bishops, and others of the Church, are to 
guard the Christian y«^^A, and punish those 
who are found wanting. As to my deeds 
(faits), I submit myself only to the Church 
in heaven, to God and the Virgin, to the 
sainted men and women in Paradise. I 
have not been wanting in regard to the 
Christian faith, and trust I never shall be." 

And, shortly afterwards : " I would 
rather die than recall what I have done 
by our Lord's command." 

What illustrates the time, the uninformed 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 185 

mind of these doctors, and their blind at- 
tachment to the letter without regard to 
the spirit, is, that no point seemed graver 
to them than the sin of having assumed 
male attire. They represented to her that, 
according to the canons, those who thus 
change the habit of their sex are abomin- 
able in the sight of Grod. At first she 
would not give a direct answer, and begged 
for a respite till the next day; but her 
judges insisting on her discarding the dress, 
she replied, " That she was not empowered 
to say when she could quit it." — " But if 
you should be deprived of the privilege of ' 
hearing mass ? " — " Well, our Lord can 
grant me to hear it without you." — " Will 
you put on a woman's dress, in order to re- 
ceive your Saviour at Easter ? " — " No ; I 
cannot quit this dress ; it matters not to 



186 JOAN OF ARC, 

me in what dress I receive my Saviour." — 
After this she seems shaken, asks to be at 
least allowed to hear mass, adding, " I won't 
say but if you were to give me a gown 
such as the daughters of the burghers wear, 
a very long goivn. ..." 

It is clear she shrank, through modesty, 
from explaining herself. The poor girl 
durst not explain her position in prison, or 
the constant danger she was in. The truth 
is, that three soldiers slept in her room,^ 
three of the brigand ruffians called liouspil- 
leurs f that she was chained to a beam 
by a large iron chain,^ almost wholly at 

1 Five Englishmen ; three of whom stayed at 
night in her room. (Houspiller, is to worry like a 
dog — hence the name Houspilleur.) Notices des 
MSS. iii. 506. 

2 " She slept with double chains round her limbs, 
and closely fastened to a chain traversing the foot 
of her bed, attached to a large piece of wood five 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 18Y 

their mercy ; tlie man's dress they wished 
to compel her to discontinue was all her 
safeguard. . . . What are we to think of 
the imbecility of the judge, or of his hor- 
rible connivance ? 

Besides being kept under the eyes of 
these wretches, and exposed to their insults 
and mockery,! she was subjected to espial 

or six feet long, and padlocked, so that she could 
not stir from the place . ' ' — Ibidem . Another witness 
states : " There was an iron beam, to keep her 
straight (erectam) . ' ' Proces MS. , Evidence of Pierre 
Cusquel. 

^ The Count de Ligny went to see her with an 
English lord, and said to her, " Jeanne, I come to 
hold you to ransom, provided you promise never 
again to bear arms against us.'' She replied : 
" Ah ! my God, you are laughing at me ; I know 
you have neither the will nor the power." And 
when he repeated the words, she added, " I am 
convinced these English will put me to death, in 
the hope of winning the kingdom of France. But 
though the Godons (Goddens) should be a hundred 
thousand more than they are to-day, they would 
not win the kingdom." The English lord was so 



188 JOAN OF ARC, 

from without. Winchester, the inquisitor, 
and Cauchon ^ had each a key to the tower, 
and watched her hourly through a hole in 
the wall. Each stone of this infernal dun- 
geon had eyes. 

Her only consolation was, that she was 
at first allowed interviews with a priest, 
who told her that he was a prisoner, and 
attached to Charles Vllth's cause. Loyse- 
leur, so he was named, was a tool of the 
English. He had won Jeanne's confidence, 
who used to confess herself to him ; and, 
at such times, her confessions were taken 
down by notaries concealed on purpose to 
overhear her.^ ... It is said that Loyse- 

enraged that he drew his dagger to plunge it into 
her, but was hindered by the Earl of Warwick. 
Notices des MSS. iii. 371. 

^ Not precisely Cauchon, but his man, Estivet, 
promoter of the prosecution. Ibid. iii. 473. 

2 The confessor was by law forbidden to repeat 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 189 

leur encouraged her to hold out, in order 
to insure her destruction. On the question 
of her being put to the torture being dis- 
cussed (a very useless proceeding, since she 
neither denied nor concealed anything), 
there were only two or three of her judges 
who counseled the atrocious deed, and the 
confessor was one of these. 

The deplorable state of the prisoner's 
health was aggravated by her being de- 
prived of the consolations of religion dur- 
ing Passion Week. On the Thursday, the 
sacrament was withheld from her : on that 
seK-same day on which Christ is universal 
host, on which He invites the poor and all 
those who suffer, she seemed to \)Qfcjr gotten} 

On Good Friday, that day of deep silence, 

the confession, but another person overhearing 
could repeat it. 
^ " Usque duo oblivisceres me in finem ? " (How 



190 JOAN OF ARC. 

on wliicli we all liear no other sound than 
the beating of one's own heart, it seems as 
if the hearts of the judges smote them, and 
that some feeling of humanity and of religion 
had been awakened in their aged scholastic 
souls : at least it is certain, that whereas 
thirty-five of them took their seats on the 
Wednesday, no more than nine were present 
at the examination on Saturday : the rest, 
no doubt, alleged the devotions of the day 
as their excuse. 

On the contrary, her courage had revived. 
Likening her own sufferings to those of 
Christ, the thought had roused her from 
her despondency. She answered, when the 
question was again put to her, " that she 
would defer to the Church militant, pro- 
long wilt thou forget me ?) Service for Holy Thurs- 
day, Lauds. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 191 

vided it commanded nothing iTRpossihley — 
" Do you think, then, that you are not sub- 
ject to the Church which is upon earth, to 
our holy father the pope, to the cardinals, 
archbishops, bishops, and prelates ? " — 
" Yes, certainly, our Lord served.^'' — " Do 
your voices forbid your submitting to the 
Church militant ? " — " They do not forbid 
it, our Lord heing served Jirsty 

This firmness did not desert her once on 
the Saturday : but on the next day, the 
Sunday, Easter Sunday ! what must her 
feelings have been? What must have 
passed in that poor heart, when the sounds 
of the universal holiday enlivening the city, 
Rouen's five hundred bells ringing out with 
their joyous peals on the air,^ and the 

^ Compare the statement, given above, as to the 
deep impression made on her by the sound of bells. 



192 JOAN OF ARC, 

whole Christian world coming to life with 
the Saviour, she remained with death ! 

Summon up our pride as much as we 
may, philosophers and reasoners as we 
boast ourselves to be in this present age, 
but which of us — amidst the agitations of 
modern bustle and excitement, or, in the 
voluntary captivity of study, plunged in 
its toilsome and solitary researches, which 
of us hears without emotion the sounds of 
these beautiful Christian festivals, the 
touching voice of the bells, and, as it were 
their mild maternal reproach ? . . . Who 
can see, without envying them, those crowds 
of believers issuing from the Church, made 
young again and revived by the divine 
table ? . . . The mind remains firm, but 
the soul is sad and heavy. . . . He who 
believes in the future, and whose heart is 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. I93 

not tlie less linked to the past, at such 
moments lays down the pen, closes the 
book, and cannot refrain from exclaiming, 
" Ah ! why am I not with them, one of 
them, and the simplest, the least of these 
little children ! " 

What must have been one's feelings at 
that time, when the Christian world was 
still one, still undivided ! What must have 
been the throes of that young soul which 
had lived but on faith ! . . . Could she 
who, with all her inner life of visions and 
revelations, had not the less docilely obeyed 
the commands of the Church ; could she, 
who till now had believed herself in her 
simplicity " a good girl," as she said, a girl 
altogether submissive to the Church — could 
she without terror see the Church against 
her ? Alone, when all are united with 



194 JOAN OF ARC, 

God — alone excepted from the world's 
gladness and universal communion, on the 
day on which the gates of heaven are 
opened to mankind — alone to be exclud- 
ed !.. . 

And was this exclusion unjust ? . . . The 
Christian's soul is too humble ever to pre- 
tend that it has a right to receive its God. 
. . . After all, what, who was she, to un- 
dertake to gainsay these prelates, these 
doctors ? How dared she speak before so 
many able men — men who had studied ? 
Was there not presumption and damnable 
pride in an ignorant girl's opposing herself 
to the learned ? a poor, simple girl, to men 
in authority ? . . . Undoubtedly fears of 
the kind agitated her mind. 

On the other hand, this opposition is not 
Jeanne's, but that of the saints and angels 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 195 

wlio have dictated Iter answers to her, and, 
up to this time, sustained her. . . . Where- 
fore, alas ! do they come no more in this 
pressing need of hers ? Wherefore do 
those consoling countenances of the saints 
appear no more, except in a doubtful light, 
and growing paler daily ? . . . Wherefore 
is the so long promised deliverance de- 
layed ? . . . Doubtless the prisoner has put 
these questions to herself over and over 
again ; doubtless, silently, gently, she has 
over and over again quareled with her 
saints and angels. But angels who do not 
keep their word, can they be angels of 
light ? . . . Let us hope that this horrible 
thought did not occur to her mind. 

There was one means of escaping : this 
was, without expressly disavowing, to for- 
bear affirming, and to say, " It seems to 



196 JOAN OF ARC, 

me." The lawyers thouglit it easy for lier 
to pronounce these few simple words ; but 
in her mind, to use so doubtful an expres- 
sion was in reality equivalent to a denial ; 
it was abjuring her beautiful dream of 
heavenly friendships, betraying her sweet 
sisters on high. . . . Better to die. . . . 
And, indeed, the unfortunate, rejected by 
the visible, abandoned by the invisible, 
Church, by the world, and by her own 
heart, was sinking. . . . And the body was 
following the sinking soul. . . . 

It so happened that on that very day she 
had eaten part of a fish which the charitable 
Bishop of Beauvais had sent her, and might 
have imagined herself poisoned. The 
bishop had an interest in her death ; it 
would have put an end to this embarrass- 
ing trial, would have got the judge out of 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 197 

the scrape : but this was not what the 
English reckoned upon. The Earl of War- 
wick, in his alarm, said, " The Mng would 
not have her by any means die a natural 
death. The hing has bought her dear. . . . 
She must die by justice and be burnt. . . . 
See and cure her." 

All attention, indeed, was paid her ; she 
was visited and bled, but was none the 
better for it, remaining weak and nearly 
dying. Whether through fear that she 
should escape thus and die without retract- 
ing, or that her bodily weakness inspired 
hopes that her mind would be more easily 
dealt with, the judges made an attempt 
while she was lying in this state (April 18). 
They visited her in her chamber, and rep- 
resented to her that she would be in great 
danger if she did not reconsider, and follow 



198 JOAN OF ARC, 

the advice of the Church. " It seems to 
me, indeed," she said, " seeing my sickness, 
that I am in great danger of death. If so, 
God's will be done ; I should like to con- 
fess, receive my Saviour, and be laid in 
holy ground." — " If you desire the sacra- 
ments of the Church, you must do as good 
Catholics do, and submit yourself to it." 
She made no reply. But, on the judge's 
repeating his words, she said : " If the 
body die in prison, I hope that you will lay 
it in holy ground ; if you do not, I appeal 
to our Lord." 

Already, in the course of these examina- 
tions, she had expressed one of her last 
wishes. Question. " You say that you 
wear a man's dress by God's command, and 
yet, in case you die, you want a woman's 
shift ? " — Ansiuer. " All I want is to have 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. I99 

a long one." This touching answer was 
ample proof that, in this extremity, she 
was much less occupied with care about 
life than with the fears of modesty. 

The doctors preached to their patient for 
a long time ; and he who had taken on 
himself the especial care of exhorting her, 
master Nicolas Midy, a scholastic of Paris, 
closed the scene by saying bitterly to her : 
" If you don't obey the Church, you will be 
abandoned for a Saracen." — " I am a good 
Christian," she replied meekly, " I was 
properly baptized, and will die like a good 
Christian." 

The slowness of these proceedings drove 
the English wild with impatience. Win- 
chester had hoped to have been able to 
bring the trial to an end before the cam- 
paign ; to have forced a confession from 



200 JOAN OF ARC, 

the prisoner and, have dishonored king 
Charles. This blow struck, he would re- 
cover Louviers, secure Normandy and the 
Seine, and then repair to Bale to begin 
another war, — a theological war, — to sit 
there as arbiter of Christendom, and make 
and unmake popes. At the very moment 
he had these high designs in view, he 
was compelled to cool his heels, wait- 
ing upon what it might please this girl to 
say. 

The unlucky Cauchon happened at this 
precise juncture to have offended the 
chapter of Rouen, from which he was 
soliciting a decision against the Pucelle : 
he had allowed himself to be addressed be- 
forehand, as " My lord, the archbishop." 
Winchester determined to disregard the 
delays of these Normans, and to refer at 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 201 

once to the great tlieological tribunal, the 
University of Paris. 

A\Tiile waiting for the answer, neAV 
attempts were made to overcome the resis- 
tance of the accused ; and both stratagem 
and terror were brought into play. In 
the course of a second admonition (May 2), 
the preacher, master Chatillon, proposed to 
her to submit the question of the truth of 
her visions to persons of her own party. 
She did not give in to the snare. " As to 
this," she said, " I depend on my Judge, the 
King of heaven and earth." She did not 
say this time, as before, " On God and the 
pope.'''' — "AYell, the Church will give you 
up, and you will be in danger of fire, both 
soul and body. You will not do what we 
tell you, until you suffer body and soul." 

They did not stop at vague threats. On 



202 JOAN OF ARC, 

\/ tlie third admonition, which took place in 
her chamber (May 11), the executioner 
was sent for, and she was told that the 
torture was ready. . . . But the maneuver 
failed. On the contrary, it was found that 
she had resumed all, and more than all, her 
courage. Kaised up after temptation, she 
seemed to have mounted a step nearer the 
source of grace. " The angel Gabriel," she 
said, " has appeared to strengthen me ; it 
was he, my saints have assured me so. . . . 
God has been ever my master in what I 
have done ; the devil has never had power 
over me. . . . Though you should tear oil 
my limbs and pluck my soul from my body, 
I would say nothing else." The spirit was 
so visibly manifested in her that her last 
adversary, the preacher Chatillon, was 
touched, and became her defender, declaring 



» THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 203 

that a trial so conducted seemed to him 
null. Cauchon, beside himself with rage, 
compelled him to silence. 

The reply of the University arrived at 
last. The decision to which it came on the 
twelve articles was, that this girl was 
wholly the devil's ; was impious in regard 
to her parents ; thirsted for Christian 
blood, etc. This was the opinion given by 
the faculty of theology. That of law was 
more moderate, declaring her to be deserv- 
ing of punishment, but with two reserva- 
tions — 1st, in case she persisted in her non- 
submission ; 2d, if she were in her right 
-senses. 

At the same time, the University wrote 
to the pope, to the cardinals, and to the King 
of England, lauding the Bishop of Beauvais 
and setting forth, '' that there seemed to it 



204 JOAN OF ARC, 

to have been great gravity observed, and a 
lioly and just way of proceeding, which 
ought to be most satisfactory to all." 

Armed with this response, some of the 
assessors were for burning her without fur- 
ther delay ; which would have been sufficient 
satisfaction for the doctors, whose authority 
she rejected, but not for the English who 
required a retraction that should defame 
(infamai) king Charles. They had re- 
course to a new admonition and a new 
preacher, master Pierre Morice, which was 
attended by no better result. It was in 
vain that he dwelt upon the authority 
of the University of Paris, " which is 
the light of all science." — " Though I 
should see the executioner and the fii'e 
there," she exclaimed, "though I were in 
the fire, I could only say what I have said." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 205 

It was by this time the 23d of May, the 
day after Pentecost ; Winchester could re- 
main no longer at Kouen, and it behooved 
to make an end of the business. Therefore, 
it was resolved to get up a great and ter- 
rible public scene, which should either 
terrify the recusant into submission, or, at 
the least, blind the people. Loyseleur, 
Chatillon, and Morice were sent to visit 
her the evening before, to promise her that, 
if she would submit and quit her man's 
dress, she should be delivered out of the 
hands of the English, and placed in those 
of the Church. 

This fearful farce was enacted in the 
cemetery of Saint-Ouen, behind the beauti- 
fully severe monastic church so called ; and 
which had by that day assumed its present 
appearance. On a scaffolding raised for 



206 JOAN OF ARC, 

the purpose sat Cardinal Winchester, the 
two judges, and thirty -three assessors, of 
whom many had their scribes seated at 
their feet. On another scaffold, in the 
midst of huissiers -^ and tortures, was Jeanne, 
in male attire, and also notaries to take 
down her confessions, and a preacher to 
admonish her ; and, at its foot, among the 
crowd, was remarked a strange auditor, the 
executioner upon his cart, ready to bear 
her oif as soon as she should be adjudged 
his. 

The preacher on this day, a famous 
doctor, Guillaume Erard, conceived himself 
bound, on so fine an opportunity, to give 
the reins to his eloquence ; and by his 
zeal he spoiled all. " O, noble house of 

1 Tipstaffs, constables. Translated " catchpole " 
below, page 209. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 207 

France," he exclaimed, "which wast ever 
wont to be protectress of the faith, how 
hast thou been abused to ally thyself with 
a heretic and schismatic. . , ." So far the 
accused had listened patiently, but when 
the preacher, turning towards her, said to 
her, raising his finger, "It is to thee, 
Jehanne, that I address myself, and 1 tell 
thee that thy king is a heretic and schis- 
matic," the admirable girl, forgetting all her 
danger, burst forth with, " On my faith, sir, 
with all due respect, I undertake to tell 
you, and to swear, on pain of my life, that 
he is the noblest Christian of all Christians, 
the sincerest lover of the faith and of the 
Church, and not what you call him." — 
" Silence her," called out Cauchon. 

Thus all these efforts, pains, and expense 
had been thrown away. The accused 



208 JOAN OF ARC, 

adhered to what she had said. All they 
could obtain from her was her consent to 
submit herself to tliepo])e. Cauchon replied, 
" The pope is too far off." He then began 
to read the sentence of condemnation, 
which had been drawn up beforehand, and 
in which, among other things, it was speci- 
fied : " And furthennore, you have obsti- 
nately persisted in refusing to submit your- 
self to the Holy Father and to the Council," 
etc. Meanwhile, Loyseleur and Erard con- 
jured her to have pity on herself ; on which 
the bishop, catching at a shadow of hope, 
discontinued his reading. This drove the 
English mad ; and one of Winchester's 
secretaries told Cauchon it was clear that 
he favored the girl — a charge repeated by 
the cardinal's chaplain. " Thou ai't a liar," 
exclaimed the bishop. "And thou," was 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 209 

the retort, "art a traitor to the king." 
These grave personages seemed to be on the 
point of going to cuffs on the judgment- 
seat. 

Erard, not discouraged, threatened, 
prayed. One while he said, " Jehanne, we 
pity you so . . . ! " and another, " Abjure, 
or be burnt ! " All present evinced an 
interest in the matter, down even to a 
worthy catchpole (Jiuissier)^ who, touched 
with compassion, besought her to give way, 
assuring her that she should be taken out 
of the hands of the English and placed in 
those of the Church. " Well, then," she 
said, "I will sign." On this, Cauchon, 
turning to the cardinal, respectfully inquir- 
ed what was to be done next. " Admit 
her to do penance," replied the ecclesiasti- 
cal prince. 



210 JOAN OF ARC, 

Wincliester's secretary drew out of liis 
sleeve a brief revocation, only six lines 
long (that which was given to the world 
took up six pages), and put a pen in her 
hand, but she could not sign. She smiled, 
and drew a circle : the secretary took her 
hand, and guided it to make a cross. 

The sentence of grace was a most severe 
one : " Jehanne, we condemn you, out of 
our grace and moderation, to pass the rest 
of your days in prison, on the bread of grief 
and water of anguish, and so to mourn your 
sins." 

She was admitted by the ecclesiastical 
judge to do penance, no doubt, nowhere 
save in the prisons of the Church. The 
ecclesiastic in pace^ however severe it might 
be, would at the least withdraw her from 
the hands of the English, place her under 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. gH 

shelter from their insults, save her honor. 
Judge of her surprise and despair when the 
bishop coldly said : " Take her back whence 
you brought her." 

Nothing was done ; deceived on this 
wise, she could not fail to retract her re- 
tractation. Yet, though she had abided by 
it, the English, in their fury, would not 
have allowed her so to escape. They had 
come to Saint-Ouen in the hope of at last 
burning the sorceress, had waited panting 
and breathless to this end ; and now they 
were to be dismissed on this fashion, paid 
with a slip of parchment, a signature, a 
grimace. . . . At the very moment the 
bishop discontinued reading the sentence 
of condemnation, stones flew upon the scaf- 
folding without any respect for the cardi- 
nal. . . . The doctors were in peril of their 



212 JOAN OF ARC, 

lives as they came down from their seats 
into the public place ; swords were in all 
directions pointed at their throats. The 
more moderate among the English confined 
themselves to insulting language : " Priests, 
you are not earning the king's money." 
The doctors, making off in all haste, said 
tremblingly : " Do not be uneasy, we shall 
soon have her again." 

And it was not the soldiery alone, not 
the English moh^ always so ferocious, 
which displayed this thirst for blood. 
The better born, the great, the lords, were 
no less sanguinary. The king's man, his 
tutor, the earl of Warwick, said like the 
soldiers: "The king's business goes on 
badly : the girl will not be burnt." 

According to English notions, Warwick 
was the mirror of worthiness, the accom- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 213 

plished Englisliman, the perfect gentleinan. 
Brave and devout, like his master, Henry V., 
and the zealous champion of the estahlished 
Church, he had performed the pilgrimage 
to the Holy Land, as well as many other 
chivalrous expeditions, not failing to give 
tournays on his route : one of the most 
brilliant and celebrated of which took 
place at the gates of Calais, where he 
defied the whole chivalry of France. This 
tournay* was long remembered ; and the 
bravery and magnificence of this Warmck 
served not a little to prepare the way for 
the famous Warwick, the hing-maher. 

With all his chivalry, Warwick was 
not the less savagely eager for the death of 
a woman, and one who was, too, a prisoner 
of war. The best, and t-he most looked- 
up-to, of the English was as little deterred 



214 JOAN OP ARC, 

by honorable scruples as the rest of his 
countrymen from putting to death on the 
award of priests, and by fire, her who had 
humbled them by the sword. 

This great English people, with so many 
good and solid qualities, is infected by one 
vice, which corrupts these very qualities 
themselves. This rooted, all-poisoning vice, 
is pride : a cruel disease, but which is never- 
theless the principle of English life, the 
explanation of its contradictions, the secret 
of its acts. With them, virtue or crime is 
almost ever the result of pride ; even their 
follies have no other source. This pride is 
sensitive, and easily pained in the extreme ; 
they are great sufferers from it, and again, 
make it a point of pride to conceal these 
sufferings. Nevertheless, they will have 
vent. The two expressive words, diswp- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 215 

pointment and mortification^ are peculiar to 
the Eng]is]i language. 

This self -adoration, this internal wor- 
ship of the creature for its own sake, is the 
sin by which Satan fell ; the height of im- 
piety. This is the reason that with so 
many of the virtues of humanity, with 
their seriousness and sobriety of demeanor, 
and with their biblical turn of mind, no 
nation is further off from grace. They are 
the only people who have been unable to 
claim the authorship of the Imitation of 
Jesus : a Frenchman might write it, a Ger- 
man, an Italian, never an Englishman. 
From Shakespeare to Milton, from Milton to 
Byron, their beautiful and somber litera- 
ture is skeptical, Judaical, satanie, in a 
word, antichrist! an. " As regards law," as 
a legist well says, " the English are Jews, 



216 JOAN OF ARC, 

the Frencli Christians." A theologian 
might express himself in the same manner, 
as regards faith. The American Indians, 
with that penetration and originality they 
so often exhibit, expressed this distinction 
in their fashion. " Christ," said one of 
them, " was a Frenchman whom the Eng- 
lish crncified in London ; Pontius Pilate was 
an officer in the service of Great Britain." 
The Jews never exhibited the rage against 
Jesus which the English did against the 
Pucelle. It must be owned that she had 
wounded them cruelly in the most sensible 
part — in the simple but deep esteem they 
have for themselves. At Orleans, the in- 
vincible men-at-arms, the famous archers, 
Talbot at their head, had shown their 
backs ; at Jargeau, sheltered by the good 
walls of a fortified town, they had suffered 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 21Y 

themselves to be taken ; at Patay, they liad 
fled as fast as tlieir legs would carry them, 
fled before a girl. ... This was hard to 
be borne, and these taciturn English were 
forever pondering over the disgrace. . . . 
They had been afraid of a girl, and it was 
not very certain but that, chained as she 
was, they felt fear of her still . . . though, 
seemingly, not of her, but of the devil, whose 
agent she was. At least, they endeavored 
both to believe, and to have it believed, so. 
But there was an obstacle in the way of 
this, for she was said to be a virgin ; and it 
was a notorious and well-ascertained fact 
that the devil could not make a compact 
with a virgin. The coolest head among the 
English, Bedford, the regent, resolved to 
have the point cleared up ; and his wife, the 
duchess, intrusted the matter to some ma- 



218 JOAN OF ARC, 

trons, who declared Jehanne to be a maid : ^ 
a favorable declaration which turned 
against her, by giving rise to another super- 
stitious notion ; to wit, that her virginity 
constituted her strength, her power, and 
that to deprive her of it was to disarm 
her, was to break the charm, and lower her 
to the level of other women. 

The poor girl's only defense against such 
a danger had been wearing male attire ; 
though, strange to say, no one had ever 
seemed able to understand her motive for 
wearing it. All, both friends and enemies, 
were scandalized by it. At the outset, 
she had been obliged to explain her reasons 

^ Must it be said that the Duke of Bedford, so 
generally esteemed as an honorable and well-regu- 
lated man, " saw what took place on this occasion, 
concealed," (erat in quodam loco secreto ubi vide- 
bat Joannam visitari). Notices des MSS. iii. 372. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 219 

to the woman of Poitiers ; and when made 
prisoner, and under the care of the ladies 
of Luxembourg, those excellent persons 
prayed her to clothe herself as honest girls 
were wont to do. Above all, the Eng- 
lish ladies, who have always made a parade 
of chastity and modesty, must have con- 
sidered her so disguising herself monstrous, 
and insufferably indecent. The duchess 
of Bedford sent her female attire ; but by 
whom? by a man, a tailor. The fellow, 
with impudent familiarity, was about to 
pass it over her head, and when she pushed 
him away, laid his unmannerly hand upon 
her ; his tailor's hand on that hand which 
had borne the flag of France — she boxed 
his ear. 

If women could not understand this 
feminine question, how much less could 



220 JOAN OF ARC, 

priests ! . . . They quoted tlie text of a 
council held in the fourth century, which 
anathematized such changes of dress ; not 
seeing that the prohibition specially applied 
to a period when manners had been barely 
retrieved from pagan impurities. The 
doctors belonging to the party of Charles 
VII., the apologists of the Pucelle, find 
exceeding difficulty in justifying her on 
this head. One of them (thought to be 
Gerson) makes the gratuitous supposition 
that the moment she dismounted from her 
horse, she was in the habit of resuming 
woman's apparel : confessing that Esther 
and Judith had had recourse to more nat- 
ural and feminine means for their triumphs 
over the enemies of God's people. Entirely 
preoccupied with the soul, these theologians 
seem to have held the body cheap ; pro- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 221 

vided the letter, the written law, be followed, 
the soul will be saved ; the flesh may take 
its chance. ... A poor and simple girl 
may be pardoned her inability to distin- 
guish so clearly. 

It is our hard condition here below, that 
soul and body are so closely bound one 
with the other, that the soul takes the flesh 
along with it, undergoes the same hazards, 
and is answerable for it. . . . This has ever 
been a heavy fatality ; but how much more 
so does it become under a religious law, 
which ordains the endurance of insult, and 
which does not allow imperiled honor to 
escape by flinging away the body, and 
taking refuge in the world of spirits ! 

On the Friday and the Saturday, the un- 
fortunate prisoner, despoiled of her man's 
dress, had much to fear. Brutality, furious 



222 JOAN OF ARC, 

hatred, vengeance, might severally incite 
the cowards to degrade her before she 
perished, to sully what they were about to 
burn. . . . Besides, they might be tempted 
to varnish their infamy by a reason of state, 
according to the notions of the day — ^by 
depriving her of her virginity, they would 
undoubtedly destroy that secret power of 
which the English entertained such great 
dread, who, perhaps, might recover their 
courage when they knew that, after all, she 
was but a woman. According to her con- 
fessor, to whom she divulged the fact, an 
Englishman, not a common soldier, but a 
gentleman, a lord — patriotically devoted 
himself to this execution, bravely under- 
took to violate a girl laden with fetters, and, 
being unable to effect his wishes, rained 
blows upon her. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 223 

" On the Sunday morning, Trinity Sun- 
day, wlien it was time for her to rise (as 
she told him who speaks), she said to her 
English guards, ' Leave me, that I may get 
up.' One of them took off her woman's 
dress, emptied the bag in which was the 
man's apparel, and said to her, ' Get up.' — 
' Gentlemen,' she said, ' you know that 
dress is forbidden me ; excuse me, I will 
not put it on.' The point was contested 
till noon ; when, being compelled to go out 
for some bodily want, she put it on. When 
she came back, they would give her no 
other despite her entreaties." ^ 

In reality, it was not to the interest of 

^ Is it not surprising to find Lingard and Turner 
suppressing these essential circumstances, and con- 
cealing the true cause of the Pucelle's resuming 
male attire ? In this both the Catholic and the 
Protestant historian sink into the mere English- 
man. 



224 JOAN OF ARC, 

the English that she should resume her 
man's dress, and so make null and void a 
retractation obtained with such difficulty. 
But at this moment, their rage no longer 
knew any bounds. Saintrailles had just 
made a bold attempt upon Rouen. It 
would have been a lucky hit to have swept 
oft' the judges from the judgment-seat, and 
have carried Winchester and Bedford to 
Poitiers ; the latter was, subsequently, all 
but taken on his return, between Rouen 
and Paris. As long as this accursed girl 
lived, who, beyond a doubt, continued in 
prison to practise her sorceries, there was 
no safety for the English : perish, she 
must. 

The assessors, who had notice instantly 
given them of her change of dress, found 
some hundred English in the court to 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 225 

obstruct their passage ; who, thinking that 
if these doctors entered, they might spoil 
all, threatened them with their axes and 
swords, and chased them out, calling them 
traitors of Armagnacs. Cauchon, intro- 
duced with much difficulty, assumed an air 
of gayety to pay his court to Warwick, and 
said with a laugh, " She is caught." 

On the Monday, he returned along with 
the inquisitor and eight assessors, to ques- 
tion the Pucelle, and ask her why she had 
resumed that dress. She made no excuse, 
but bravely facing the danger, said that the 
dress was fitter for her as long as she was 
guarded by men, and that faith had not 
been kept with her. Her saints, too, had 
told her, " that it was great pity she had 
abjured to save her life." Still, she did not 
refuse to resume woman's dress. " Put me 



226 JOAN OF ARC, 

in a seemly and safe prison," she said, " I 
will be good, and do whatever the Church 
shall wish." 

On leaving her, the bishop encountered 
Warwick and a crowd of English ; and to 
show himself a good Englishman, he said in 
their tongue, " Farewell, farewell." This 
joyous adieu was about synonymous with 
" Good evening, good evening ; all's over." 

On the Tuesday, the judges got up at the 
archbishop's palace a court of assessors as 
they best might : some of them had assisted 
at the first sittings only, others at none : in 
fact, composed of men of all sorts, priests, 
legists, and even three physicians. The 
judges recapitulated to them what had 
taken place, and asked their opinion. This 
opinion, quite different from what was ex- 
pected, was that the prisoner should be 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. ^27 

summoned, and her act of abjuration be 
read over to her. Whether this was in the 
power of the judges is doubtful. In the 
midst of the fury and swords of a raging 
soldiery, there was in reality no judge, and 
no possibility of judgment. Blood was the 
one thing wanted ; and that of the judges 
was, perhaps, not far from flowing. They 
hastily drew up a summons, to be served 
the next morning at eight o'clock : she was 
not to appear, save to be burnt. 

Cauchon sent her a confessor in the 
morning, brother Martin I'Advenu, " to 
prepare her for her death, and persuade her 
to repentance. . . . And when he apprised 
her of the death she was to die that day, 
she began to cry out grievously, to give 
wa}^, and tear her hair : — ' Alas ! am I to 
be treated so horribly and cruelly ? must 



228 JOAN OF ARC, 

my body, pure as from birtli, and whicli 
was never contaminated, be this day con- 
sumed and reduced to ashes ? Ha ! ha ! I 
would rather be beheaded seven times over 
than be burnt on this wise. . . . Oh ! I 
make my appeal to God, the great judge of 
the wrongs and grievances done me I ' " . 

After this burst of grief, she recovered her- 
self and confessed ! she then asked to com- 
municate. The brother was embarrassed ; 
but consulting the bishop, the latter told 
him to administer the sacrament, " and 
Avhatever else she might ask." Thus, at 
the very moment he condemned her as a 
relapsed heretic, and cut her off from the 
Church, he gave her all that the Church 
gives to her faithful. Perhaps a last senti- 
ment of humanity awoke in the heart of the 
wicked judge ; he considered it enough tp 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 229 

burn the poor creature, without driving her 
to despair, and damning her. Perhaps, also, 
the wicked priest, through freethinking lev- 
ity, allowed her to receive the sacraments 
as a thing of no consequence, which, after 
all, might serve to calm and silence the 
sufferer. . . . Besides, it was attempted to 
do it privately, and the eucharist was 
brought without stole and light. But the 
monk complained, and the Church of 
Rouen, duly warned, was delighted to show 
what it thought of the judgment pro- 
nounced by Cauchon ; it sent along with 
the body of Christ numerous torches and a 
large escort of priests, who sang litanies, 
and, as they passed through the streets, told 
the kneeling people, " Pray for her." 

After partaking of the communion, which 
she received with abundance of tears, she 



230 JOAN OF ARC, 

perceived the bishop, and addressed him 
with the words, " Bishop, I die through 
you. . . ." And, again, " Had you put me 
in the prisons of the Church, and given me 
ghostly keepers, this would not have hap- 
pened. . . . And for this, I summon you to 
answer before God." 

Then, seeing among the bystanders Pierre 
Morice, one of the preachers by whom she 
had been addressed, she said to him, " Ah, 
master Pierre, where shall I be this even- 
ing ? " — " Have you not good hope in the 
Lord ? "— " Oh ! yes ; God to aid, I shall 
be in Paradise." 

It was nine o'clock : she was dressed in 
female attire, and placed on a cart. On 
one side of her was brother Martin 
I'Advenu ; the constable, Massieu, was on 
the other. The Augustine monk, Brother 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 231 

Isambart, who had already displayed such 
charity and courage, would not quit her. 
It is stated that the wretched Loyseleur also 
ascended the cart, to ask her pardon : but 
for the Earl of Warwick, the English would 
have killed him.^ 

Up to this moment the Pucelle had never 
despaired, with the exception, perhaps, of 
her temptation in the Passion week. While 
saying, as she at times would say, " These 
English will kill me," she in reality did 
not think so. She did not imagine that 
she could ever be deserted. She had faith 
in her king, in the good people of France. 
She had said expressly, " There will be 
some disturbance either in prison or at the 



^ This, however, is only a rumor (Audivit dici. 
. . .), a dramatic incident, with which popular tra- 
dition has, perhaps, gratuitously adorned the tale. 



232 JOAN OF ARC, 

trial, by wliicli I sliall be delivered, ... 
greatly, victoriously delivered." . . . But 
though king and people deserted her, she 
had another source of aid, and a far more 
powerful and certain one from her friends 
above, her kind and dear saints. . . . When 
she was assaulting Saint-Pierre, and de- 
serted by her followers, her saints sent an 
invisible army to her aid. How could they 
abandon their obedient girl ; they who had 
so often promised her safety and deliver- 
mice. . . ? 

What then must her thoughts have been, 
w^hen she saw that she must die ; when, 
carried in a cart, she passed through a trem- 
bling crowd, under the guard of eight 
hundred Englishmen armed with sword 
and lance ? She wept and bemoaned her- 
self, yet reproached neither her king nor 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 233 

her saints. . . . She was only heard to 
utter, " O Rouen, Rouen ! must I then die 
here ? " 

The term of her sad journey was the old 
market-place, the fish-market. Three scaf- 
folds had been raised : on one, was the 
episcopal and royal chair, the throne of 
the Cardinal of England, surrounded by the 
stalls of his prelates ; on another, were to 
figure the principal personages of the mourn- 
ful drama, the preacher, the judges, and 
the bailli, and, lastly, the condemned one ; 
apart, was a large scaffolding of plaster, 
groaning under a weight of wood — nothing 
had been grudged the stake, which struck 
terror by its height alone. This was not 
only to add to the solemnity of the execu- 
tion, but was done with the intent that 
from the height to which it was reared, the 



234: JOAN OF ARC, 

executioner might not get at it save at the 
. base, and that to light it only, so that he 
would be unable to cut short the torments 
and relieve the sufferer, as he did with 
others, sparing them the flames. On this 
occasion, the important point was that 
justice should not be defrauded of her due, 
or a dead body be committed to the flames ; 
they desired that she should be really burnt 
alive, and that placed on the summit of this 
mountain of wood, and commanding the 
circle of lances and of swords, she might 
be seen from every part of the market- 
place. There was reason to suppose that 
being slowly, tediously burnt before the 
eyes of a curious crowd, she might at last 
be surprised into some weakness, that some- 
thing might escape her which could be set 
down as a disavowal, at the least some con- 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 235 

fused words which might be interpreted at 
pleasure, perhaps, low prayers, humiliating 
cries for mercy, such as proceed from a 
woman in despair. . . . 

A chronicler, friendly to the English, 
brings a heavy charge against them at this 
moment. According to him, they wanted 
her gown to be burnt first, so that she 
might remain naked, " in order to remove 
all the doubts of the people ; " that the 
fagots should then be removed so that all 
might draw nigh to see her, " and all the 
secrets which can or should be in a wom- 
an : " and that after this immodest, ferocious 
exhibition, " the executioners should replace 
the great fire on her poor carrion. . . ." 

The frightful ceremony began with a 
sermon. Master Nicolas Midy, one of the 
lights of the university of Paris, preached 



236 JOAN OF ARC, 

upon tlie edifying text : " When one limb 
of the Church is sick, the whole Church is 
sick." This poor Church could only be 
cured by cutting oif a limb. He wound 
up with the formula : " Jeanne, go in peace, 
the church can no longer defend tliee^'' 

The ecclesiastical judge, the bishop of 
Beauvais, then benignly exhorted her to 
take care of her soul and to recall all her 
misdeeds, in order that she might awaken 
to true repentance. The assessors had 
ruled that it was the law to read over her 
abjuration to her ; the bishop did nothing 
of the sort. He feared her denials, her dis- 
claimers. But the poor girl had no thought 
of so chicaning away life : her mind was 
fixed on far other subjects. Even before 
she was exhorted to repentance, she had 
knelt down and invoked God, the Virgin, 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 237 

St. Micliael and St. Catherine, pardoning 
all and asking pardon, saying to tlie by- 
standers, " Pray for me ! "... In particu- 
lar, she besought the priests to say each a 
mass for her soul. . . . And all this, so de- 
voutly, humbly, and touchingly, that sym- 
pathy becoming contagious, no one could 
any longer contain himself ; the bishop of 
Beauvais melted into tears, the bishop of 
Boulogne sobbed, and the very English 
cried and v^ept as v^ell, Winchester with 
the rest. 

Might it be in this moment of universal 
tenderness, of tears, of contagious weakness, 
that the unhappy girl, softened, and relaps- 
ing into the mere woman, confessed that 
she saw clearly she had erred, and that, 
apparently, she had been deceived when 
promised deliverance. This is a point on 



238 JOAN OF ARC, 

which we cannot implicitly rely on the 
interested testimony of the English. Nev- 
ertheless, it would betray scant knowledge 
of human nature to doubt, with her hopes 
so frustrated, her having wavered in her 
faith. . . . Whether she confessed to this 
eft'ect in words is uncertain; but I will 
confidently affirm that she owned it in 
thought. 

Meanwhile the judges, for a moment put 
out of countenance, had recovered their 
usual bearing, and the Bishop of Beauvais, 
drying his eyes, began to read the act of 
condemnation. He reminded the guilty 
one of all her crimes, of her schism, idol- 
atry, invocation of demons, how she had 
been admitted to repentance, and how, 
" Seduced by the prince of lies, she had 
fallen, O grief ! like the dog which returns 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 239 

to Ms vomit. . . . Therefore, we pro- 
nounce you to be a rotten limb, and, as 
such, to be lopped oft' from the Church. 
We deliver you over to the secular power, 
praying it at the same time to relax its sen- 
tence, and to spare you death, and the mu- 
tilation of your members." 

Deserted thus by the Church, she put 
her whole trust in God. She asked for the 
cross. An Englishman handed her a cross 
which he made out of a stick ; she took it, 
rudely fashioned as it was, with not less 
devotion, kissed it, and placed it under her 
garments, next to her skin. . , . But what 
she desired was the crucifix belonging to 
the Church, to have it before her eyes till 
she breathed her last. The good hussier^ 
Massieu, and Brother Isambart, interfered 
with such eft'ect, that it was brought her 



240 JOAN OF ARC, 

from St. Sauveur's. While she was em- 
bracing this crucifix, and Brother Isambart 
was encouraging her, the English began to 
think all this exceedingly tedious ; it was 
now noon, at least ; the soldiers grumbled, 
and the captains called out " What's this, 
priest ; do you mean us to dine here ? " 
. . . Then, losing patience, and without 
waiting for the order from the bailli, who 
alone had authority to dismiss her to death, 
they sent two constables to take her out of 
the hands of the priests. She was seized 
at the foot of the tribunal by the men-at- 
arms, who dragged her to the executioner 
with the words, " Do thy office. . . ." The 
fury of the soldiery filled all present with 
horror ; and many there, even of the judges, 
fled the spot that they might see no more. 
When she found herself brought down 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. Ml 

to the market-place, surrounded by English, 
laying rude hands on her, nature asserted 
her rights, and the flesh was troubled. 
Again she cried out, " O Rouen, thou art 
then to be my last abode ! . . ." She said 
no more, and, in this hour of fear and 
trouble, did not sin with her lips. . . . 

She accused neither her king, nor her 
holy ones. But when she set foot on the 
top of the pile, on viewing this great city, 
this motionless and silent crowd, she could 
not refrain from exclaiming, " Ah ! Rouen, 
Rouen, much do I fear you will suffer 
from my death ! " She who had saved the 
people, and whom that people deserted, 
gave voice to no other sentiment when 
dying (admirable sweetness of soul !) than 
that of compassion for it. 

She was made fast under the infamous 



242 JOAN OF AUG, 

placard, mitered with a miter on which was 
read — " Heretic, relapser, apostate, idolater. 
. . ." And then the executioner set fire to 
the pile. . . . She saw this from above and 
uttered a cry. . . . Then, as the brother 
who was exhorting her paid no attention 
to the fire, forgetting herself in her fear for 
him, she insisted on his descending. 

The proof that up to this period she had 
made no express recantation is, that the 
unhappy Cauchon was obliged (no doubt 
by the high Satanic will which presided 
over the whole) to proceed to the foot of 
the pile, obliged to face his victim to en- 
deavor to extract some admission from her. 
All that he obtained was a few words, 
enough to rack his soul. She said to him 
mildly, what she had already said : " Bishop, 
I die through you. ... If you had put 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 243 

me into the Church prisons, this would not 
have happened." No doubt hopes had 
been entertained that on finding herself 
abandoned by her king, she would at last 
accuse and defame him. To the last, 
she defended him : " Whether I have done 
well or ill, my king is faultless ; it was not 
he who counseled me." 

Meanwhile, the flames rose. . . , When 
they first seized her, the unhappy girl 
shrieked for holy tuater — this must have 
been the cry of fear. . . . But soon recover- 
ing, she called only on God, on her angels 
and her saints. She bore witness to them : 
— "Yes, my voices were from God, my 
voices have not deceived me." The fact 
that all her doubts vanished at this trying 
moment must be taken as a proof that she 
accepted death as the promised deliverance ; 



244 JOAN OF ARC, 

that she no longer understood her salvation 
in the Judaic and material sense, as until 
now she had done, that at length she saw 
clearly ; and that rising above all shadows, 
her gifts of illumination and of sanctity were 
at the final hour made perfect unto her. 

The great testimony she thus bore is at- 
tested by the sworn and compelled witness 
of her death, by the Dominican who 
mounted the pile with her, whom she 
forced to descend, but who spoke to her 
from its foot, listened to her, and held out 
to her the crucifix. 

There is yet another witness of this 
sainted death, a most grave witness, who 
must himself have been a saint. This wit- 
ness, whose name history ought to preserve, 
was the Augustine monk already men- 
tioned, Brother Isambart de la Pierre. 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 245 

During the trial lie had hazarded his life 
by counseling the Pucelle, and yet, though 
so clearly pointed out to the hate of the 
English, he persisted in accompanying her 
in the cart, procured the parish crucifix for 
her, and comforted her in the midst of 
the raging multitude, both on the scaffold 
where she was interrogated, and at the stake. 

Twenty years afterwards, the two vener- 
able friars, simple monks, vowed to poverty, 
and having nothing to hope or fear in this 
world, bear witness to the scene we have 
just described : " We heard her," they say, 
" in the midst of the flames invoke her 
saints, her archangel; several times she 
called on her Saviour. . . . At the last, as 
her head sunk on her bosom, she shrieked, 
* Jesus!'" 

" Ten thousand men wept. ... A few 



246 JOAN OF ARC, 

of tlie English alone laiiglied, or endeavored 
to laugh. One of the most furious among 
them had sworn that he would throw a 
fagot on the pile. Just as he brought it, 
she breathed her last. He was taken ill. 
His comrades led him to a tavern to recruit 
his spirits by drink, but he was beyond re- 
covery. " I saw," he exclaimed, in his 
frantic despair, " I saw a dove fly out of 
her mouth with her last sigh." Others had 
read in the flames the word " Jesus," which 
she so often repeated. The executioner 
repaired in the evening to Brother Isambart, 
full of consternation, and confessed himself ; 
but felt persuaded that God would never 
pardon him. . . . One of the English 
king's secretaries said aloud, on returning 
from the dismal scene, "We are lost; we 
have burnt a saint." 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 247 

Thoiigli these words fell from an enemy's 
mouth, they are not the less important, 
and will live, uncontradicted by the future. 
Yes, whether considered religiously or 
patriotically Jeanne Dare was a saint. 

Where find a finer legend than this true 
history ? Still, let us beware of converting 
it into a legend ; let us piously preserve 
its every trait, even such as are most akin 
to human nature, and respect its terrible 
and touching reality. . . . 

Let the spirit of romance profane it by 
its touch, if it dare ; poetry will ever 
abstain. For what could it add ? . . . The 
idea which, throughout the middle age, it 
had pursued from legend to legend, was 
found at the last to be a living being — the 
dream was a reality. The Virgin, succorer 
in battle, invoked by knights, and looked 



248 JOAN OF ARC, 

for from above, was here below . . . and 
in whom ? Here is the marvel. In what 
was despised, in what was lowliest of all, 
in a child, in a simple country girl, one of 
the poor, of the people of France. . . . For 
there was a people, there was a France. 
This last impersonation of the past was 
also the first of the period that was 
commencing. In her there at once ap- 
peared the Virgin . . . and, already, 
country. 

Such is the poetry of this grand fact, 
such its philosophy, its lofty truth. But 
the historic reality is not the less certain ; 
it was but too positive, and too cruelly 
verified. . . . This living enigma, this mys- 
terious creature, whom all concluded to be 
supernatural, this angel or demon, who, 
according to some, was to fly away some 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 249 

morning, was found to be a woman, a young 
girl ; was found to be without wings, and 
linked as we ourselves to a mortal body, 
was to suffer, to die — and how frightful a 
death ! 

But it is precisely in this apparently 
degrading reality, in this sad trial of nature, 
that the ideal is discoverable, and shines 
brightly. Her contemporaries recognized 
in the scene Christ among the Pharisees. 
. . . Still we must see in it something else 
— the Passion of the Virgin, the martyrdom 
of purity. 

There have been many martyrs : history 
shows us numberless ones, more or less 
pure, more or less glorious. Pride has had 
its martyrs ; so have hate, and the spirit of 
controversy. 'No age has been without 
martyrs militant, who no doubt died with 



250 JOAN OF ARC, 

a good grace when they could no longer 
kill. . . . Such fanatics are irrelevant to 
our subject. The sainted girl is not of 
them ; she had a sign of her own — good- 
ness, charity, sweetness of soul. 

She had the sweetness of the ancient 
martyrs, but with a difference. The first 
Christians remained gentle and pure only 
by shunning action, by sparing themselves 
the struggles and the trials of the world. 
Jehanne was gentle in the roughest struggle, 
good amongst the bad, pacific in war itself ; 
she bore into war (that triumph of the 
devil's) the spirit of God. 

She took up arms, when she knew " the 
pity for the kingdom of France." She 
could not bear to see " French blood flow." 
This tenderness of heart she showed to- 
wards all men. After a victory she would 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 251 

weep, and would attend to the wounded 
English. 

Purity, sweetness, heroic goodness- — that 
this supreme beauty of the soul should have 
centered in a daughter of France, may sur- 
prise foreigners Avho choose to judge of our 
nation by the levity of its manners alone. 
We may tell them (and without partiality, 
as we speak of circumstances so long since 
past) that under this levity, and in the 
midst of its follies and its very vices, old 
France was not styled without reason, the 
most Christian people. They were cer- 
tainly the people of love and of grace ; and 
whether we understand this humanly or 
Christianly, in either sense it will ever hold 
good. 

The deliverer of France could be no 
other than a woman. France herself was 



252 JOAN OF ARC, 

woman ; having her nobility, but her 
amiable sweetness likewise, her prompt and 
charming pity ; at the least, possessing the 
virtue of quickly-excited sympathies. And 
though she might take pleasure in vain 
elegances and external refinements, she re- 
mained at bottom closer to nature. The 
Frenchman, even when vicious, preserved, 
beyond the man of every other nation, 
good sense and goodness of heart. . . . 

May new France never forget the saying 
of old France : " Great hearts alone under- 
stand how much glory there is in heing 
good I " To be and to keep so, amidst the 
injuries of man and the severity of Prov- 
idence, is not the gift of a happy nature 
alone, but it is strength and heroism. . . . 
To preserve sweetness and benevolence in 
the midst of so many bitter disputes, to 



THE MAID OF ORLEANS. 253 

pass through a life's experiences without 
suffering them to touch this internal treas- 
ure — is divine. They who persevere, and 
so go on to the end, are the true elect. 
And though they may even at times have 
stumbled in the difficult path of the world, 
amidst their falls, . their weaknesses, and 
their infancies^ they will not the less re- 
main children of God ! 



THE EISTD. 



^. L. BURT'S PUBLICATIONS 

For Young People 

BY POPULAR WRITERS, 

52-58 Duane Street, New York. 



Bonnie Prince Charlie : A Tale of Fontenoy and Culloden. By 

G. A. Henty. With 12 full- page Illustrations by Gordon 

Browne. 13mo, cloth, price $1.00, 

The adventures of the son of a Scotch officer in French service, 
■"he boy, brought up by a Glasgow bailie, is a rested for aiding a 
'acobite agent, escapes, is wrecked on the French coast, reaches 
Par'n, and serves with the French army at Dettiugen. He kills 
Ids father's foe in a duel, and escaping to the coast, shares the 
adventures of Prince Charlie, but finally settles happily in Scot- 
land, 

" Ronald, the hero, is very Uke the hero of * Quentin Durward.' The lad's 
journey across France, and his hairbreadth escapes, make up as good a nar- 
vative of the kind as we have ever read. For freshness of treatment and 
'Variety of incident Mr. Henty has surpassed himself."— Spectoior. 

With Clive in India ; or, the Beginnings of an Empire. By 
G. A. Henty, With 12 full-page Illustrations by Gordon 
Browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

The period between the landing of Clive as a young writer in 
India and the close of his career was critical and eventful in the 
extreme. At its commencement the English were traders existing 
on sufferance of the native princes. At its close they were masters 
of Bengal and of the greater part of Southern India. The author 
has given a full and accurate account of the events of that stirring 
time, and battles and sieges follow each other in rapid succession, 
while he combines with his narrative a tale of daring and adven- 
ture, which gives a lifelike interest to the volume. 

" He has taken a period of Indian history of the most vital importance, 
and he has embroidered on the historical facts a story which of itself is deeply 
Interesting. Young people assuredly wUl be delighted with the volume." — 
Scotsman, 

The Lion of the North : A Tale of Gustavus Adolphus and ths 

Wars of Religion. By G. A. Henty. With full-page IlluS" 

trations by John Schonberg. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

In this story Mr. Hen y gives the history of the first part of th© 

Thirty Years' War. The issue had its importance, which has ex- 

tend3d to the present day, as it e?tablislied religious freedom 

in Germany. The army of the chivalrous king of Sweden wa3 

largely composed of Scotchmen, and among these was the hero of 

the story 

'' The tale is a clever and instructive piece of history, and as boys ma^ tee 
trusted to read it conscientiously, they can hardly fail to be prefitecC."— rwn.e& 



S A. L. BURT'S PUBLICATIONS. 

The Dragon and the Raven ; or, The Days of King Alfred. By 
G. A. Henty, With full-page Illustrations by C. J. Stani- 
LAND, R.I. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

In this story the author gives an account of the fierce struggle 
between Saxon and Dane for supremacy in England, and presents 
a vivid picture of the misery and ruin to which the country was 
reduced by the ravages of the sea-wolves. The hero, a young 
Saxon thane, takes part in all the battles fought by King Alfred. 
He is driven from his home, takes to the sea and resists the Danes* 
on their own element, and being pursued by them up the Seine, 
is present at the long and desperate siege of Paris. 

" Treated in a manner most attractive to the boyish reader." — AthencBum 

The Young Carthaginian: A Story of the Times of HanniWal. 
By G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by C. J. Stani- 
liAND, R.L 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

Boys reading the history of the Punic Wars have seldom a keen 
appreciation of the merits of the contest. That it was at first a 
struggle for empire, and afterward for existence on the part of 
Carthage, that Hannibal was a great and skillful general, that he 
defeated the Romans at Trebia, Lake Trasimenus, and Cannae, 
and all but took Rome, represents pretty nearly the sum total of 
their knowledge. To let them know more about this momentous 
struggle for the empire of the world Mr. Henty has written this 
story, which not only gives in graphic style a brilliant descrip- 
tion of a most interesting period of history, but is a tale of ex- 
citing adventure sure to secure the interest of the reader. 

" VTell constructed and vividly told. From first to last nothing stays the 
interest of the narrative. It bears us along as on a Istream whose current 
varies in direction, but never loses its torce.''^— Saturday Review. 

In Freedom's Cause : A Story of Wallace and Bruce. By Q. A, 
Henty. With full-page Illustrations by Gordon Browne. 
12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

In this story the author relates the stirring tale of the Scottish 
War of Independence. The extraordinary valor and personal 
prowess of Wallace and Bruce rival the deeds of the mythical 
heroes of chivalry, and indeed at one time Wallace was ranked 
with these legendary personages. The researches of modern 
historians have shown, however, that he was a living, breathing 
natan — and a valiant champion. The hero of the tale fought under 
both Wallace and Bruce, and while the strictest historical accuracy 
has been maintained with respect to public events, the work is 
full of "hairbreadth 'scapes " and wild adventure. 

'' It is written in the author's best style. Full of the wildest and most re- 
markable achievements, it is a tale of great interest, which a boy, once he haQ 
begun it, will not willingly put on one side."— ITie Schoolmaster. 



A. L. BURT'S PUBLICATIONS. 8 

With Lee in Virginia : A Story of the American Civil War. By 
G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by Gordon 
Browne. 13mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

The story of a young Virginian planter, who, after bravely 
proving his sympathy with the slaves of brutal masters, serves 
with no less courage and enthusiasm under Lee and Jackson 
through the most exciting events of the struggle. He has many 
hairbreadth escapes, is several times wounded and twice taken 
prisoner; but his courage and readiness and, in two cases, the 
devotion of a black servant and of a runaway slave whom he had 
assisted, bring him safely through all difficulties. 

" One of the best stories .:or lads which Mr. Henty has yet written. The 
picture is full of life and color, and the stirring and romantic incidents are 
skillfully blended with the personal interest and charm of the story."- 
Standard. 

By England's Aid ; or, The Freeing of the Netherlands (1585- 
1604). By G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by 
Alfred Pearse, and Maps. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 
The story of two English lads who go to Holland as pages in 
the service of one of " the fighting Veres." After many adven- 
tures by sea and land, one of the lads finds himself on board a 
Spanish ship at the time of the defeat of the Armada, and escapes 
only to fall into the hands of the Corsairs. He is successful in 
getting back to Spain under the protection of a wealthy merchant, 
and regains his native country after the capture of Cadiz. 

" It is an admirable book for youngsters. It overflows with stirring inci- 
dent and exciting adventure, and the color of the era and of the scene are 
finely reproduced. The illustrations add to its attractiveness."— Bosfoji 
Gazette. 

By Right of Conquest ; or. With Cortez in Mexico. By G. A. 

Henty. With full-page Illustrations by W. S. Stagey, and 

Two Maps. 13mo, cloth, price $1.50. 

The conquest of Mexico by a small band of resolute men under 
the magnificent leadership of Cortez is always rightly ranked 
among the most romantic and daring exploits in history. With 
this as the groundwork of his story Mr. Henty has interwoven the 
adventures of an English youth, Roger Hawkshaw, the sole sur- 
vivor of the good ship Swan, which had sailed from a Devon port 
to challenge the mercantile supremacy of the Spaniards in the 
New World. He is beset by many perils among the natives, but 
is saved by his own judgment and strength, and by the devotion 
of an Aztec princes'^^. At last by a ruse be obtains the protection 
«f the Spaniards, and after the fall of Mexico he succeeds in re- 
gaining his native shore, with a fortune and a charming Aztec 
bride. 

" ' By Right of Conquest ' is the nearest approach to a perfectly successful 
bistorioal tale that Mr. H^ty has yet publi^ied."— JLceuiem^. . 



A. L. BURT'S PUBLICATIONS. 



In the Reign of Terror : The Adventures of a Westminster Boy. 

By G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by J. SchOn- 

BERG. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

Harry Sandwith, a Westminster boy, becomes a resident at the 
chateau of a French marquis, and after various adventures accom- 
panies the family to Paris at the crisis of the Revolution. Im- 
prisonment and death reduce their number, and the hero finds 
'himself beset by perils with the three young daughters of the 
house in his charge. After hairbreadth escapes they reach Nan. 
tes. There the girls are condemned to death in the coffin- shipSj 
but are saved by the unfailing courage of their boy protector. 

" Harry Sandwith, the Westminster boy, may fairly be said to beat Mr. 
Henty's record. His adventures will delight bove by the audacity and peril 
they depict. . . . The story is one of Mr. Henty's best."— /S'aiwj-day 
Review. 

With Wolfe in Canada ; or, The Winning of a Continent. By 
G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by Gordon 
Browne. 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

In the present volume Mr. Henty gives an account of the strug- 
gle between Britain and France for supremacy in the North 
American continent. On the issue of this war depended not only 
the destinies of North America, but to a large extent those of the 
mother countries themselves. The fall of Quebec decided that 
the ^nglo-Saxon race should predominate in the New World; 
that Britain, and not France, should take the lead among the 
nations of Europe; and that English and American commerce, the 
. English language, and English literature, should spread right 
round the globe, 

" It 13 not o«ly a lesson in history as instructively as it is graphically told, 
but also a deeply interesting and often thrilling tale of adventure and peril by 
flood and Held."— Illustrated London News. 

True to the Old Flag : A Tale of the American War of Inde« 

pendence. By G. A. Henty. With full-page Illustrations by 

Gordon Browne, 12mo, cloth, price $1.00. 

In this story the author has gone to the accounts of oflBcers who 

vook part in the conflict, and lads will find that in no war in which 

American and British soldiers have been engaged did they behave 

with greater courage and good conduct. The historical portion of 

the l)ook being accompanied with numerous thrilling adventures 

with the redskins on the shores of La'^e Huron, a story of exciting 

interest s interwoven with the general narrative and carried 

through the book. 

" Does ju*ice to the pluck and determination of the British soldiers during 
the unfortunate struggle against American emancipation. The son of an 
American loyalist, who remains true to our flag, falls among the hostile red- 
skins w that very Huron country which has been endeared to us by the ex- 
ploits of Bawkeye and Chingacbgook."— 2%« Timea. 



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